charming unmarried daughter lived at home, making, with myself, a
family of four.

Life was spent quietly, and every evening, after our coffee
(served in the living-room in winter, and in the garden in
summer), Frau Generalin would amuse me with descriptions of life
in her old home, and of how girls were brought up in her day; how
industry was esteemed by her mother the greatest virtue, and
idleness was punished as the most beguiling sin. She was never
allowed, she said, to read, even on Sunday, without her
knitting-work in her hands; and she would often sigh, and say to
me, in German (for dear Frau Generalin spoke no other tongue),
"Ach, Martha, you American girls are so differently brought up";
and I would say, "But, Frau Generalin, which way do you think is
the better?" She would then look puzzled, shrug her shoulders,
and often say, "Ach! times are different I suppose, but my ideas
can never change."

Now the dear Frau Generalin did not speak a word of English, and
as I had had only a few lessons in German before I left America,
I had the utmost difficulty at first in comprehending what she
said. She spoke rapidly and I would listen with the closest
attention, only to give up in despair, and to say, "Gute Nacht,"
evening after evening, with my head buzzing and my mind a blank.

After a few weeks, however, I began to understand everything she
said, altho' I could not yet write or read the language, and I
listened with the greatest interest to the story of her marriage
with young Lieutenant Weste, of the bringing up of her four
children, and of the old days in Hanover, before the Prussians