It was because Liesel was so happy that to her Corinne had first gone with her plan for Tante Ilde. Liesel had spent summer after summer in the house at Baden. Her aunt had always spoiled her. Everybody spoiled Liesel, so evidently made for happiness. As a little girl she was forever rummaging in the attic for bits of silk and lace for her dolls, and would turn out the nattiest things. Now for herself she did the same. She was round-faced, fresh-skinned and smiles played easily about her somewhat wide, very red mouth;—she would have been attractive in rags. But she had that peculiar Viennese talent for wearing clothes, a jaunty manner of pulling her belt in snugly that made the observer conscious of her very small waist under a full bust, above broad hips, a way of pressing her hat down upon her head at the most becoming angle; and her high-heeled shoes were always bright and neatly tied. These and a lot of other details of an extremely feminine sort added undeniably to her natural charms. Pauli said that though her soul was but a centimeter deep, you looked to the bottom through the clearest of waters. If in her happiness she sometimes forgot other people's miseries, it was but natural, and when she was reminded she was all solicitude and self-reproach.
"That will be nice," Tante Ilde was saying slowly after another long pause, and she was gladder than ever that she had added the knife-rests and napkin rings to the spoons when Liesel was married. Then as a sudden thought came to her, she quite brightened up, "I can do the dishes," she cried, "Liesel always used to hate to do anything that would spoil her hands."
"Well, she doesn't seem to mind spoiling her hands for Otto," answered Corinne rather drily.
"They're in love," returned Tante Ilde gently, glimmeringly.
A shadow fell over Corinne's face at the answer as if a ray of light had been interrupted, or as if something had been muted for a moment. Her aunt, who was not one to break into silent places, waited patiently, though she was wondering who and what was coming next.
"Pauli," the shadow was followed by a light in Corinne's face as she spoke the name lingeringly, "Pauli," she repeated, "wants you to go to Anna's on Tuesday. It's one of their meat days—when they can get it."
"Perhaps I better not go there then. It looks," she hesitated and there were sudden tears in her eyes, "so greedy."
"Not at all," cried Corinne. "Pauli wants you to go on Tuesday just because of that. He said he'd try to be there himself, that first time anyway. Anna and Hermine are quite worked up about it and wondering what they can give him to eat."
"Poor Anna," said her aunt very gently.
Corinne flushed. Again they were silent.