'You called?' said Anna, entering.
'No. Go away! Go away!'
'Very good, old cat,' said the maid under her breath. 'Next time you may call,' and she returned to her friend in the kitchen.
'I ask you--ask you, please to go away,' Frau Ebermann pleaded. 'Go to my Anna through that door, and she will give you cakes and sweeties. It is not kind of you to come into my room and behave so badly.'
'Where else shall we go now?' the elder girl demanded, turning to her little company. They fell into discussion. One preferred the broad street with trees, another the railway station; but when she suggested an Emperor's palace, they agreed with her.
'We will go then,' she said, and added half apologetically to Frau Ebermann, 'You see, they are so little they like to meet all the others.'
'What others?' said Frau Ebermann.
'The others--hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of the others.'
'That is a lie. There cannot be a hundred even, much less a thousand,' cried Frau Ebermann.
'So?' said the girl politely.