"Fie," said John, an old servant, who, having grown gray in the service of his lordship's father, was now eating the bread of charity in the house of Baron Eichenthal. "It is wrong to spoil the wench's food and drink with bitter words."
"Pshaw!" retorted the gardener, "it will not hurt her. Since that lean-bodied toady, Frederick, has been running after her, she's as proud as though she had angled a nobleman!"
"Pride comes before a fall!" said Lizzie, the buxom little cook, with a tender glance at the phlegmatic head farm-hand. "Do you know that she laces?"
"Why shouldn't she be proud," interjected the coachman, "isn't she the schoolmaster's daughter!"
Frederika, the chambermaid, came into the kitchen with a heated face. "Isn't Anna here?" she asked, drying her forehead with her silk handkerchief. "The master has just gone to bed, he joked a good deal"—here she coughed, as the others cast significant glances at one another and laughed—"and I am to tell her that she is to begin combing the flax right away, and"—this she added on her own authority—"she must not stop work until ten o'clock."
"I'll give her the message, Rika!" answered Lizzie. Frederika tripped out again.
"Doesn't she lace too?" asked the head farm-hand.
"Chut! Chut!" whispered John, and jingled his fork against his plate in embarrassment. Anna entered the kitchen with her load of water.
"Anna," began Lizzie officiously, "I am to tell you—"
"I know all about it already," answered Anna drily, in a steady voice.
"I met the messenger. Where is the key to the flax-room hanging?"