'I can't think. It must be a habit.'
'You don't look very fat.'
'How can I, when I'm not?'
'You must come and see my baby,' said Elschen, apparently irrelevantly, but I don't think it really was; she thought a glimpse of that, I am sure, refreshing baby would cure most heartsicknesses.
'Yes, yes, it is a splendid baby,' said Lieschen, brightening, 'and its wardrobe is trimmed throughout with the best Swiss embroidery threaded with beautiful blue ribbons. It cost many hundred marks, I assure you. There is nothing that is not both durable and excellent. Elschen's mother-in-law is a very rich lady. She gave it all. She keeps two servants, and they wear washing dresses and big white aprons, just like English servants. Elschen's mother-in-law says it is a great expense because of the laundry bills, but that she doesn't mind. If you were going to stay longer, and had got the necessary costumes, we might have taken you to see her, and she might perhaps have asked you to stay to coffee.'
'Really?' said I, in a voice of concern.
'Yes. It is a pity for you. You would then see how elegant Berlin people are. I expect this—' she waved her hand—'is quite different from Jena, and seems strange to you, but it is nothing, I assure you nothing at all, compared to Elschen's mother-in-law's furniture and food.'
'Really?' said I, again with concern.
I did a dreadful thing next morning at breakfast: I broke a jug. Never shall I forget the dismay and shame of that moment. Really I am rather a deft person, used to jugs, and not, as a rule, of hasty or unconsidered movements. It was, I think, the electric current streaming out of Onkel Heinrich that had at last reached me too and galvanized me into a nervous and twitching behavior. He came in last, and the moment he appeared words froze, smiles vanished, eyes fell, and Papa's piping alone continued to be heard in the cheerless air. I don't know what had passed between him and Tante Else since last we had seen him, but his opaque black eyes were crosser and blacker than ever. Perhaps it was only that he had smoked more than was good for him, and the whole family was punished for that over-indulgence. I could not help reflecting how lucky it was that we were his relations and not hers; what must happen to hers if they ever come to see her I dare not think. It was while I was reflecting on their probable scorched and shrivelled condition, and at the same time was eagerly passing him some butter that I don't think he wanted but that I was frantically afraid he might want, that my zealous arm swept the milk-jug off the table, and it fell on the varnished floor, and with a hideous clatter of what seemed like malicious satisfaction smashed itself to atoms.
'There now,' cried my step-mother casting up her hands, 'Rose-Marie all over.'