'I am very sorry,' I stammered, pushing back my chair and gathering up the pieces and mopping up the milk with my handkerchief.
'Dear niece, it is of no consequence,' faltered Tante Else, her eyes anxiously on her husband.
'No consequence?' cried he—and his words sounded the more terrific from their being the first, beyond a curt good morning, that he had uttered. 'No consequence?'
And when my shameful head reappeared above the table and I got on to my feet and carried the ruins to a sideboard, murmuring hysterical apologies as I went, he pointed with a lean finger to what had once been a jug and said with an owlish solemnity and weightiness of utterance I have never heard equalled, 'It was very expensive.' I can't tell you how glad, how thankful I was to get home.
Yours sincerely,
ROSE-MARIE SCHMIDT.
LV
Galgenberg, Nov. 15th.
Dear Mr. Anstruther,—I shall send this to Jermyn Street, as it can no longer catch you in Italy. Jena is not on the way from London to Berlin, and I don't know what map persuaded you that it was. It is very faithful and devoted of you to want so much to see Professor Martens again, but you know he is a busy man, and for five minutes with him as he rushes from a lecture to a private lesson it hardly seems worth while to make such a tremendous détour. Why, you would be hours pottering about on branch lines and at junctions, and would never, I am certain, see your luggage again. Still, it is not for me to refuse your visit to Professor Martens on his behalf who as yet knows nothing about it. I merely advise; and you know I do not easily miss an opportunity of doing that.