"I am sad there is nothing for you," she murmured in English,--a language
she fondly fancied she spoke.

"Oh, there is bread galore," said the Mees.

This set the hostess to thinking. Bread she understood; but what was bread
galore?

"I should like to learn some American dishes," she said. "Buckwhit cakes,
--so, is it right?--I have read of them. How you would relish them
to-night, would you not?"

"No," said Mees ungraciously.

"Not?" said the Von Entes, who talked together habitually. "But what then?"

"Beef--mutton--chickens," said Mees.

"We have them here," murmured the Frau Pastorin sweetly.

"Do you?" said Mees, quite as sweetly. And Hedwig Vogel burst out
laughing. The Frau Pastorin bit her lip, the Von Ente girls looked blank,
and Annette scuttled away, smelling danger from afar, for she knew full
well that she often received a vicarious reproof.

Supper over, the table was cleared and a big Bible laid before the Frau
Pastorin, who, as a clergyman's widow, felt that it was her duty to set a
good example to the sojourners beneath her roof. Hedwig Vogel, however,
did not stay to the reading: she went up to her bare, lonely rooms. They