Frau Hartmann, in an ashamed, apologetic voice: "We are such a happy
family since my dear man died."

"But these marriages--one must have courage; and after all, give them time,
they all make the happy family bigger--thank God for that...Are there many
people here just now?"

"Every room engaged."

Followed a detailed description in the hall, murmured on the stairs,
continued in six parts as they entered the large room (windows opening upon
the garden) which Frau Fischer occupied each successive year. I was
reading the "Miracles of Lourdes," which a Catholic priest--fixing a gloomy
eye upon my soul--had begged me to digest; but its wonders were completely
routed by Frau Fischer's arrival. Not even the white roses upon the feet
of the Virgin could flourish in that atmosphere.

"...It was a simple shepherd-child who pastured her flocks upon the
barren fields..."

Voices from the room above: "The washstand has, of course, been scrubbed
over with soda."

"...Poverty-stricken, her limbs with tattered rags half covered..."

"Every stick of the furniture has been sunning in the garden for three
days. And the carpet we made ourselves out of old clothes. There is a
piece of that beautiful flannel petticoat you left us last summer."

"...Deaf and dumb was the child; in fact, the population considered her