His wife, who took delight in being called Madame Weiss at Brixen, and who considered herself to be in some degree a lady of fashion, had nevertheless been very much disturbed in her mind by the increased prices, and had suggested that the place should be abandoned. A raising of prices was in her eyes extortion;--though a small raising of salary was simply justice, and, as she thought, inadequate justice. But the living at the Peacock was good. Nobody could deny that. And when a middle-aged man is taken away from the comforts of his home, how is he to console himself in the midst of his idleness unless he has a good dinner? Herr Weiss had therefore determined to endure the injury, and as usual to pass his holiday in the Brunnenthal. But when Madame Weiss saw those two frauleins from Innsbruck in the house, whose means she knew down to the last kreutzer, and who certainly could not afford the increased demand, she thought that there must be something not apparent to view. Could it be possible that the Frau should be so unjust, so dishonest, so extortious as to have different prices for different neighbours! That an Englishman, or even a German from Berlin, should be charged something extra, might not perhaps be unjust or extortious. But among friends of the same district, to put a zwansiger and a half on to one and not to another seemed to Madame Weiss to be a sin for which there should be no pardon. “I am so glad to see you here,” she said to the younger fraulein. “That is so kind of you. But we always are here, you know.” “Yes;--yes. But I feared that perhaps----. I know that with us we had to think more than once about it before we could make up our minds to pay the increased charges. The ‘Magistrat’ felt a little hurt about it.” To this the fraulein at first answered nothing, thinking that perhaps she ought not to make public the special benevolence shown by the Frau to herself and her sister. “A zwansiger and a half each is a great deal of money to add on,” said Madame Weiss. “It is, indeed.” “We might have got it cheaper elsewhere. And then I thought that perhaps you might have done so too.” “She has made no increase to us,” said the poor lady, who at last was forced to tell the truth, as by not doing so she would have been guilty of a direct falsehood in allowing it to be supposed that she and her sister paid the increased price. “Soh--oh--oh!” exclaimed Madame Weiss, clasping her hands together and bobbing her head up and down. “Soh--oh--oh!” She had found it all out. Then, shortly after that,--the next day,--there was an uncomfortable perturbation of affairs at the Peacock, which was not indeed known to all the guests, but which to those who heard it, or heard of it, seemed for the time to be very terrible. Madame Weiss and the Frau had,--what is commonly called,--a few words together. “Frau Frohmann,” said Madame Weiss, “I was quite astonished to hear from Agatha Tendel that you were only charging them the old prices.”