'Stop! Stop!' cried Frau Meyer desperately. 'I cannot see you throw away a good place with so little preliminary reflection. Have you considered that there would be no trudging to market, and consequently you will only require half the boots and stockings and skirts those poor girls have to buy who live up in the villas that look so grand and pretend to give such high wages?'
The girl paused.
'And no steep stairs to climb, laden with heavy baskets? And hardly any washing—hardly any washing, I tell you!' she almost shrieked in her anxiety. 'And no cooking to speak of? And every Sunday—mind, every Sunday evening free? And I never scold, and my husband never scolds, and with a hundred and eighty marks a year there is nothing a clever girl cannot buy. Why, it is an ideal, a delightful place—one at which I would jump if I were a girl, and this lady'—indicating me—'would jump, too, would you not, Rose-Marie?'
The girl wavered. 'How many children are there?' she asked.
'Children? Children? Angels, you mean. They are perfect angels, so good and well-behaved—are they not, Rose-Marie? Fit to go at once to heaven—unberufen—without a day's more training, so little would they differ in manner when they got there from angels who have been used to it for years. You are fond of children, Fräulein, I am sure. Naturally you are. I see it in your nice face. No nice Fräulein is not. And these, I tell you, are such unusual—'
'How many are there?'
'Ach Gott, there are only six, and so small still that they can hardly be counted as six—six of the dearest—'
The girl turned on her heel. 'I cannot be fond of six,' she said; and went out with the heavy tread of finality.
Frau Meyer looked at me. 'There now,' she said, in tones of real despair.
'It is very tiresome,' said I, sympathizing the more acutely that I knew my turn was coming next.