Hanoverian purity of her speech and the freedom with which she spoke.
The average peasant is diffident, with a vocabulary of few words,
ignorant of art or music or where the world lay.

"What is your name?"

"Gretchen."

"It is a good name; it is famous, too."

"Goethe used it."

"So he did." Carmichael ably concealed his surprise: "You have some one
who reads to you?"

"No, Herr. I can read and write and do sums in addition."

He was willing to swear that she was making fun of him. Was she a simple
goose-girl? Was she not something more, something deeper? War-clouds
were forming in the skies; they might gather and strike at any time. And
who but the French could produce such a woman spy? Ehrenstein was not
Prussia, it was true; but the duchy with its twenty thousand troops was
one of the many pulses that beat in unison with this man Bismarck's
plans. Carmichael addressed her quickly in French, aiming to catch her
off her guard.

"I do not speak French, Herr,"--honestly.

He was certainly puzzled, but a glance at her hands dissolved his
doubts. These hands were used to toil, they were in no way disguised. No