It was a comfortable little living room into which she then stepped, crowded with furniture, mostly Biedermayer, that had belonged to Otto's mother and his grandmother before her. Mellow, pale brown furniture decorated here and there with a black motif. A writing desk, with high shelves and glass doors destined for books, now held a mauve and white tea-set in old Vienna ware. A green porcelain stove stood in one corner and was beginning to give forth its gentle heat. Liesel lighted it about an hour before Otto returned and then all day long into the evening it could be depended on to give out generously its pleasant, even warmth. Between it and the window were Otto's armchair and his special stool for his lame leg, near it a little table with a rack for his pipes, his wallet of tobacco and a box of Trabucos. Otto _had_ to have his cigar after supper and when luxuriously he had smoked it he would pull at his pipe and read the _Wiener Journal_ or perhaps get out his flute. They talked of renting a piano when things got better and then Liesel could play his accompaniments. After busy days, pleasant evenings. Liesel's deft fingers were always at work salvaging something old,--her darning was famous in the family, or smartly fashioning something new. She had a way of standing in front of him and asking him if the stripes were more becoming across or up and down, or she would sit in his lap and ask him if his treasure could wear her dress as short as _that_, only so much stuff, every centimeter counted, that enchanted his uxorious soul. He would pinch her ankles and say that anybody who wore a 35 shoe could do as she liked, or as far up as the police permitted, and Liesel would be delighted and laugh and laugh. After hearing what had happened at the Ministry, she would tell of those even more vitally interesting visits to provision shops, where evidently the tradespeople liked to see her, and as far as was wise she would let him into the secret of her ways of ferreting out the little that was hidden; her ready smile, those two soft dimples and her even softer brown eyes counting for much in such operations. Once, but that was in the very beginning, she had started to tell Otto of the quite fresh remarks of the cheesemonger--a good-looking fellow--but he'd pouted for two days and though secretly Liesel was gratified by these signs of jealousy--once in awhile, like that--in the end she wisely kept the not at all displeasing personal attentions she received while marketing to herself. Liesel had no books and never dreamed of opening the newspaper,--world-events were nothing to her. After supper as she sewed, Otto would sometimes read her amusing bits under the caption "Around about the Globe": "A dangerous Don Juan," "The most useful tree in the world," "The Adonis of the American film world," "Solemn mourning for a cat," and such like. Liesel adored cats. She wanted a cat, a piano and a baby; otherwise she had really little left to wish for.