She snatched the flimsy thing out of Lilly's hands, rolled it in a sheet of paper, and took it to the kitchen. Lilly, who followed, saw a thin cloud of smoke rise from the hearth, carrying with it a whirl of charred tinsel rags. Old Grete stood by, glancing first at Anna and then at Lilly in perturbed surprise.
She appeared to know of what transactions the discovery was evidence, but when asked by Lilly to explain she held her tongue.
"I was not much here, but away in the town," she excused herself, "when the colonel was there with the regiment, you know. Ask the Fräulein; she will tell you."
The Fräulein would not tell. With grimly compressed lips and vacant gaze she avoided the subject, and for three days or more scarcely answered when Lilly spoke to her.
Then suddenly, as they sat at supper, without any apparent cause, her whole manner changed. She became facetious and talkative, and sympathetic towards her employer, suggesting remedies for his gout and wringing from him a promise to give up the injurious morning ride.
"I have been thinking over Lilly's riding lessons," she went on. "I really don't think there can be any danger after all in entrusting her to the boy, if one of us is present to see that all is right--anyhow at the start."
Lilly gave a sigh of joy, but neither by her eyes nor facial expression did she betray the smallest sign of pleasure, so severely in the meantime had she learned to school herself.
The next morning the lesson began.
Walter von Prell appeared in riding get-up. His body was bent forward as much as to say, "I await orders," and his whole bearing bespoke submissive respect as he stood first on one foot, then on the other.
A quiet grey mare, with narrow flanks and somewhat overstrained forelegs, but a smart, well-groomed little mount, had been chosen for the first ride. Her instructor explained to her the principle on which bridle and bit were constructed, showed her how the girths were buckled, how the snaffle and curb-reins were to be held, and how to prevent the curb throttling the horse.