"It is the German Young Ladies Evangelical Home, for Protestants only," we were told.
We thanked the Matron, and decided that we were neither German, Evangelical nor young enough for such a home, even though we might be ladies and Protestants.
Disappointed in our hope of finding a pension, we returned to our friend of the Information Bureau, this time to ask for addresses of furnished rooms with a decent landlady to attend to them for us. He shook his head once more—it was very difficult in a garrison town, he said, to be certain of the character of a house which had furnished rooms to let.
"But where do the artists of the theatres usually live?" we asked.
"Oh! they either take furnished rooms, or bring their own furniture," he answered, "or live in the smaller hotels. But then they are Germans and used to judging in such cases. There is, however, an English lady living here who knows the town thoroughly, and you had better go to her and get her to find rooms for you."
As we felt that we could not possibly ask a totally unknown Englishwoman to find lodgings for us, my sister set out on the hunt alone. As a foreigner speaking no German, and a woman looking for rooms all by herself, she was received in a very curious manner by most of the landladies she visited, and evidently looked upon with strong suspicion. We were getting desperate, as the time of my début was coming nearer and nearer and we were still unsettled. Finally we resolved to throw ourselves upon the mercy of the unknown Englishwoman after all, and wrote her a note begging her assistance in finding two furnished rooms near the theatre, with a Hausfrau who would look after them and serve our breakfast. We had to find a furnished apartment as we were not like some of my colleagues who possess their own furniture and pass their lives in a sort of singing journey through the country, always surrounded by their own household goods.
