into the house by our mother for our protection, for in winter our home,
surrounded by its spacious grounds, was very lonely.

As for us five children, first came my oldest sister Martha--now, alas!
dead--the wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Baron Curt von Brandenstein, and my
brother Martin, who were seven and five years older than I.

They were, of course, treated differently from us younger ones.

Paula was my senior by three years; Ludwig, or Ludo--he was called by his
nickname all his life--by a year and a half.

Paula, a fresh, pretty, bright, daring child, was often the leader in our
games and undertakings. Ludo, who afterward became a soldier and as a
Prussian officer did good service in the war, was a gentle boy, somewhat
delicate in health--the broad-shouldered man shows no trace of it--and
the best of playfellows. We were always together, and were frequently
mistaken for twins. We shared everything, and on my birthday, gifts
were bestowed on him too; on his, upon me.

Each had forgotten the first person singular of the personal pronoun, and
not until comparatively late in life did I learn to use "I" and "me" in
the place of "we" and "us."

The sequence of events in this quiet country home has, of course,
vanished from my mind, and perhaps many which I mention here occurred in
Lennestrasse, where we moved later, but the memories of the time we spent
in the Thiergarten overlooked by our second home--are among the brightest
of my life. How often the lofty trees and dense shrubbery of our own
grounds and the beautiful Berlin Thiergarten rise before my mental