"That makes me think so much of mothers."
The princess turned her head quickly, and examined Anna's face. It was Sunday evening, and the others were at church. The baroness, whose recovery was slow, was up in her room.
"What mothers?" naturally inquired the princess.
"I think this everlasting heat is dreadful," said Anna plaintively. "I have no backbone left. I am all limp, and soft, and silly. In cold weather I believe I wouldn't want a mother half so badly."
"So you want a mother?" said the princess, taking Anna's hand in hers and patting it kindly. She thought she knew why. Everyone in the house saw that something must have been said to Axel Lohm to make him keep away so long. Perhaps Anna was repenting, and wanted a mother's help to set things right again.
"I always thought it would be so glorious to be independent," said Anna, "and now somehow it isn't. It is tiring. I want someone to tell me what I ought to do, and to see that I do it. Besides petting me. I long and long sometimes to be petted."
The princess looked wise. "My dear," she said, shaking her head, "it is not a mother that you want. Do you know the couplet:—
Man bedarf der Leitung
Und der männlichen Begleitung?
A truly excellent couplet."
Anna smiled. "That is the German idea of female bliss—always to be led round by the nose by some husband."