The trouble with Mrs. Stelling was that she could only speak a few words of English, but Mrs. Ward said “she was a pleasant enough little body,” and she established herself quite definitely in Mrs. Ward’s affections for the reason that she was so obviously and so passionately devoted to her two sons. “Oh, my word, though, they do have funny ways—these foreigners,” she continued. “The things they used to eat! most peculiar! I’ve known them eat stewed prunes with hot meat!” Mrs. Ward repeated, “Stewed prunes with hot meat!” several times, and shook her head, as though this exotic mixture was a thing to be sternly discouraged. But she acknowledged that Mrs. Frow Stelling was in some ways a very good cook, in fact, her cakes were really wonderful, “the sort of thing you can’t even buy in a shop.” About the boys there seemed to be a little divergence of opinion. They were both also fat-faced, and their heads were “almost shaved like convicts.” The elder one wore spectacles and was rather noisy, but: “My Ernie liked the younger one. Oh, yes, my Ernie said that young Hans was quite a nice boy. It was funny the way they spoke, funny and difficult to understand.” It was very patent that between the elder boy and Ernie, who were of about the same age, there was an element of rivalry which was perhaps more accentuated in the attitude of the mothers than in the boys themselves. Mrs. Ward could find little virtue in this elder boy. Most of her criticism of the family was leveled against him. The rest she found only a little peculiar. She said she had never heard such a funny Christian name as Frow. Florrie she had heard of, and even Flora, but not _Frow_. I suggested that perhaps Frow might be some sort of title, but she shook her head and said that that was what she was always known as in the Sheldrake Road, “Mrs. Frow Stelling.” In spite of Mrs. Ward’s lack of opportunity for greater intimacy on account of the language problem, her own fine imaginative qualities helped her a great deal. And in one particular she seemed curiously vivid. She gathered an account from one of them—I’m not sure whether it was Mr. or Mrs. Frow Stelling or one of the boys—of a place they described near their home in Bremen. There was a narrow street of high buildings by a canal, and a little bridge that led over into a gentleman’s park. At a point where the canal turned sharply eastwards there was a clump of linden-trees, where one could go in the summer-time, and under their shade one might sit and drink light beer, and listen to a band that played in the early part of the evening.