"I will do better," she promised herself, and next day she remembered much better.
But it was hard to keep the children quiet in the evening. She told all the stories she could think of, and they only clamoured for more.
One evening a bright thought struck her.
She ran to her room and came back with a fat, red book whose brass clasp she unlocked with a tiny key.
"Now, Ilse and Elsa," she said, "get your tent-stitch. Bettina, I would not knit. Work on that strip for a bed-spread. Carlchen, draw some pictures and I will read you a lovely book about our Queen."
Then she told them that their Aunt Erna, who had died when she was sixteen, had written it and it would give them a story of how happy the Queen was before Napoleon came into Prussia.
Then she arranged the candles, and all settled to listen.
The Professor, passing through the room, this time smiled on Marianne.
"Where are the children, Richard? What are they doing?" cried nervous Madame von Stork as he opened the door of her room.
When he told her, the worry faded from her poor ill face.