"Better looking too than our Martha, is she not?" mocked Barbara.
"I won't go as far as that. She is too tall and angular and spinster-like, and has a nose like Herr Krause—always red."
"Does she drink?" inquired Barbara.
"No," said Martha, thrusting out her formidable bosom; "she laces too tight, poor thing!"
It was after ten p.m., and Barbara ought to have been in one of two white-and-pink beds gracing the Young Misses' Chamber in Villa Huegel, but Frau Krupp was away in Cologne and Martha the most indulgent of governesses. Hence it had not been necessary for Bertha to exert her authority to gain an hour out of bed for sister.
Bertha, who was sitting on a low "pouf," was convulsed with laughter at Martha's pantomime. Shrieking, she knocked her forehead against her knees, Barbara joining.
"And Auntie Majesty's Martha—the Baroness, I mean—does she put out the linen and mend silk stockings and serve tea on the waitress's day out?" continued Barbara her inquiries.
"Why not ask whether she makes the help's beds?" demanded Martha; and then, in her drastic manner: "You are a baby, Fraulein Barbara."
But the Krupp heiress treated the question seriously. "No," she replied, assuming an air of superiority. "The Baroness tells the Empress what is fit to wear."
"Unfit, Fraulein means to say," whispered Martha.