not know the truth about Verdun.

"And believe me, as the Americans say," remarked Mimi Brandt, "when the
German people know the truth, particularly the German women, there will
be some circus."

Mimi had been far more of an active rebel than the Niebuhr girls,
possibly because her life-stream was closer to the source, patently to
herself because she had a magnificent voice which needed only technique
to assure her a welcome in any of the great opera houses of Germany.
Adroitly persuaded by her parents to marry when she was not quite
seventeen, she had conceived an abhorrence of the rodent-visaged young
burgess who had been her lot; not only was he personally distasteful to
the ardent romantic girl, but he would not permit her to cultivate her
voice, much less study for the stage. Her revenge had been a cruel
disdain, to which he had responded by lying under the bed all night and
howling. Twice she had run away, visiting prosperous and sympathetic
relatives in Milwaukee, and both times returned at the passionate
solicitations of her parents; not only outraged in their dearest
conventions but anxious to be rid of the small rodent born of the union.

Her last return had been but a month before the outbreak of the war, and
Hans Brandt, to his growling disgust, was promptly swept off by the
searching German broom. He was as much in love with his wife as a man so
meagerly equipped in all but national conceit may be, for Mimi was a
handsome girl with a buxom but graceful figure, and a laughing face
whose golden brown eyes sparkled with the pure fun of living when they
were not somber with disgust and rebellion.

Gisela had always looked upon Heloise von Erkel as the most tragic