in a convent would have given her time to recover her breath.

"I have presented her with a copy," he said. "And to-day we are going to
look for wild flowers in the wood."

The student from Bonn got up and left the room. I begged the poet to
repeat the verses once more. At the end of the sixth verse I saw from the
window the sister of the Baroness and the scarred youth disappearing
through the front gate, which enabled me to thank the poet so charmingly
that he offered to write me out a copy.

But we were living at too high pressure in those days. Swinging from our
humble pension to the high walls of palaces, how could we help but fall?
Late one afternoon the Frau Doktor came upon me in the writing-room and
took me to her bosom.

"She has been telling me all about her life," whispered the Frau Doktor.
"She came to my bedroom and offered to massage my arm. You know, I am the
greatest martyr to rheumatism. And, fancy now, she has already had six
proposals of marriage. Such beautiful offers that I assure you I wept--and
every one of noble birth. My dear, the most beautiful was in the wood.
Not that I do not think a proposal should take place in a drawing-room--it
is more fitting to have four walls--but this was a private wood. He said,
the young officer, she was like a young tree whose branches had never been
touched by the ruthless hand of man. Such delicacy!" She sighed and
turned up her eyes.

"Of course it is difficult for you English to understand when you are
always exposing your legs on cricket-fields, and breeding dogs in your back
gardens. The pity of it! Youth should be like a wild rose. For myself I