She told me I'd teased her

character and knows what she means. about enough for one day" (with a laugh). "But I've gained something. She's given me leave to drive with her this afternoon. From a woman as proud as that, too. Oh! it's quite a concession."

But Mrs. Jackson had apparently no intention of sleeping, for Mr. Binns had not been gone two minutes when she also emerged, peeping cautiously round first, to see if the coast was clear.

"I do wish that fellow would conclude bothering me," she said. "I am sick and tired of having him always around me. I've told him twenty times, if I have told him once, that I don't mean to marry him. He plagues me to death. Oh, lord, yes!" she continued, answering my sympathetic look, "he's plagued me ever since we left the steamer. It don't seem any good my telling him I'd prefer to remain single. What on earth should ever tempt a woman who has been comfortably 'left' to marry again I don't know. And my husband left me very comfortably off-not wealthy, but enough. He'd insured himself-let's see," she went on complacently, ticking off her fingers, "it must have been for twenty thousand pounds, I guess, at the lowest computation."

"He must have been a good husband, certainly," I murmured, while Mattie tried to repress a bad inclination to smile.

"I should say so, indeed. Why, he was three weeks dying, and all the time he kept saying, 'Annie, keep on with the business' (his was a blacking business) as best you can, and, if you must marry again, marry a man with plenty of "gumption" and "go" in him, who'll stand by you and the business.'

"Ah!" I said, "and you don't consider Mr. Binns answers the description?"

"Not I! He's a silly old goose, that's what he is. Man! he a man! I've got more man in my little finger than he's got in his whole body. He's too soft for a man; he ain't got no gumption. Business he ain't got nothing of a head for business. Nothing like my husband. The blacking trade would never keep me in clothes "-(looking complacently down at her Paris-made skirts)— "if he took to the management of it. And, besides, he's always in love with somebody or other. It's second nature to him to fool around some one. You can see what he is. I don't trust him."

"If he's that sort of man," I couldn't help here interposing, "I wonder you weren't afraid to travel about so long with him."

"Oh! I never was afraid of nothing yet. I'd like you to show me the man I ever was afraid of. Why, I've travelled alone out West, and had to carry arms; and once, when they stopped the

by way of counting my stitches. But Mr. Thompson Binns, who had not been attending at all to anyone but himself, here gave such a tremendous groan that we were all quite startled by it. Then he got up, pushed his chair back and went out, slamming the door behind him.

"Ah! it is sad to see a poor young man so much in love," said the sympathetic Bertha, "and with so little return."

"Nonsense! I believe Mees Jackson is really fond of him, and it's only her way of flirting," remarked Frau Auerbach severely. "You should have seen the life I led my poor dear Jacob before we were betrothed. He had to ask me seven times, and yet I always meant to have him in the end." The said Jacob, I may mention, had been defunct for now ten years, so his widow permitted herself a little affection for him, but there were not wanting those who libelled her, as Dürer's wife had been libelled, by saying that her husband, poor man! had been glad to find rest in his grave.

("You did not have to ask me so often," here remarked Louise to Franz in a loud parenthesis.)

"Mr. Binns is too young to marry a widow, and I believe Mrs. Jackson is older than he is ;" this assertion came from Bertha.

"What does that matter?" inquired Frau Auerbach, looking daggers-was not she a widow herself?

"Well, but should not a man be older than his wife?" Bertha asked, appealing to the company in general.

Frau Biener seemed to take this as a personal challenge. In all her dignity of mother-in-law she spoke over her clicking knitting pins, her square form and roughly hewn features looming quite. sphinx-like through the gloom. "My first husband" (click) "was ten years older than myself" (click, click); "my second husband" (click), "whom I married thirteen months after the death of my first " (click, click), "was thirteen years younger than myself" (click). "My first husband had a big ready-made clothes business" (click); "my second was his foreman" (click). "With both of them I lived happily. They knew when they were made comfortable" (click). “I am a good cook, you see, and I was always clean and hardworking" (click, click, click).

The words were oracularly spoken, and it seemed quite unnecessary and even irreverent to answer them, as it would have been in the old days to reply to Minerva or Apollo. No one ventured to question the desirability or suitableness of either of Frau Biener's matrimonial alliances.

Only Mattie turned up her little nose. "What slavery!" cried

"erster Schatz."

At any rate there is a great coolness with the "zweiter." The different parties to the quarrel, unfortunately, choose poor Mattie and myself as confidantes. The lover will only walk with me; the young girl will only walk with Mattie. They glare every time we meet, as we naturally often do within the small area of the "Kur-garten" promenade. The result is that Mattie and I can't speak to each other. We object very much to be used as cats'-paws in a lovers' quarrel that does not the least concern us. But it is all of no use.

"You think I care for that girl?" says the discarded youth to me, as I am vainly endeavouring to get through my portion of water under the flowering limes. "Well, I do not care that" (here he snaps his fingers) "for her. I shall not think of marrying her if she is not good. A girl with a temper, who will not obey? No, I do not love her. Ha, ha!"

On the other hand, from his fiancée's furious look when we pass, I can quite well conjecture what she is saying to Mattie.

July 5.-When we entered the salle à manger this evening, Mrs. Jackson was conspicuous by her absence; and we noticed that Mr. Thompson Binns's countenance wore a look expressive of the deepest gloom. "He has proposed to her again," Mattie whispered to me, "and she has refused him." I unrolled my work silently.

"You do too much work, Mees," said Frau Auerbach; "work of all kinds is extremely prejudicial to the 'Kur.'"

"Yes," added placid Louise, who was sitting in a state of idyllic happiness with her husband's hand in hers (he had come at last to spend Sunday), "it's quite true. You never see me do anything while I'm here."

"You don't do much at home, my child," here interposed her mother-in-law, as she looked over her spectacles and knitting at the young couple. "Franz spoils you. Only think," she went on in a loud whisper to Frau Auerbach; "he lets her have a girl in the kitchen."

"Ah! when you have a little son," said Frau Auerbach goodnaturedly to the bride, "that will give you an occupation. You will have to wash him, to teach him—”

"He shall go to the same school that you attended," said Louise, looking radiantly at her Franz; "he must be brought up exactly like his father."

The husband beamed at this, and squeezed his Louise's hand affectionately. Mattie looked another way. These little domestic idylls, enacted in public, made her feel quite sick. As for me, I was VOL. CCLXXIII. NO. 1942.

BB

by way of counting my stitches. But Mr. Thompson Binns, who had not been attending at all to anyone but himself, here gave such a tremendous groan that we were all quite startled by it. Then he got up, pushed his chair back and went out, slamming the door behind him.

"Ah! it is sad to see a poor young man so much in love," said the sympathetic Bertha, "and with so little return."

"Nonsense! I believe Mees Jackson is really fond of him, and it's only her way of flirting," remarked Frau Auerbach severely. "You should have seen the life I led my poor dear Jacob before we were betrothed. He had to ask me seven times, and yet I always meant to have him in the end." The said Jacob, I may mention, had been defunct for now ten years, so his widow permitted herself a little affection for him, but there were not wanting those who libelled her, as Dürer's wife had been libelled, by saying that her husband, poor man! had been glad to find rest in his grave.

("You did not have to ask me so often," here remarked Louise to Franz in a loud parenthesis.)

"Mr. Binns is too young to marry a widow, and I believe Mrs. Jackson is older than he is;" this assertion came from Bertha.

"What does that matter?" inquired Frau Auerbach, looking daggers-was not she a widow herself?

"Well, but should not a man be older than his wife?" Bertha asked, appealing to the company in general.

Frau Biener seemed to take this as a personal challenge. In all her dignity of mother-in-law she spoke over her clicking knitting pins, her square form and roughly hewn features looming quite sphinx-like through the gloom. "My first husband" (click) "was ten years older than myself" (click, click); "my second husband" (click), "whom I married thirteen months after the death of my first " (click, click), "was thirteen years younger than myself" (click). "My first husband had a big ready-made clothes business" (click); "my "With both of them I lived second was his foreman" (click). happily. They knew when they were made comfortable" (click). "I am a good cook, you see, and I was always clean and hardworking" (click, click, click).

The words were oracularly spoken, and it seemed quite unnecessary and even irreverent to answer them, as it would have been in the old days to reply to Minerva or Apollo. No one ventured to question the desirability or suitableness of either of Frau Biener's matrimonial alliances.

Only Mattie turned up her little nose.

"What slavery !" cried

359

she. "I would never cook or be a servant to any man. I can't cook, and if I were a German girl I wouldn't learn."

"Well, and what will your mother say," demanded Frau Auerbach, "when some rich young man asks her for your hand in marriage? When he comes to the usual question, 'Is she a good cook?' she will be obliged to answer, 'No,' and your chance will be lost."

Mattie felt too disgusted to speak. Happily I came to her rescue. "We English have different ways," I said.

"Oh, English!" cried Frau Biener contemptuously, ignorirg our presence. "The English! fine housekeepers they make. What waste! What ignorance! They only manage to live at all, ir their expensive country, because they are all so rich. If they are poor they are obliged to go and live elsewhere. And the husbands-do their wives make them comfortable? No, it is well said, 'Die Liebe eines deutschen Mannes geht durch den Magen '--den Magen," she repeated, with a rapt look.

"But," I here remarked feebly, "how can a man's wife be a companion to him if she is always in the kitchen?"

"Companion!" echoed Frau Auerbach scornfully. "No man wants his wife to know the things that he knows. Let her mind the cooking, see to the sewing, look after the children: his companions are his friends at the Wirthshaus."

"They don't go to the Wirthshaus every evening in England," I suggested.

"They do worse things, no doubt," said the censorious Frau Auerbach, who, dcubtless, on Mr. Lillyvick's principle, would allow no virtue to foreigners.

July 9.-There is to be a dance at the "Kurhaus " to-night, in honour of some royalties. It is to be quite an "occasion" for the neighbourhood. Everyone in our pension is going, from Frau Biener to the "young girl," whose lover departed in dudgeon some days ago. No longer can the little town of Bad-Langeweile complain of a dearth of men. Louise has got her Franz with her; her second husband (the foreman of the ready-made clothes business) has arrived to escort Frau Biener. Only Mr. Binns still lounges about in solitary gloom, snubbed by the lady of his affections. He seeks consolation in vain from frequent "cocktails" and cigars. He has long ago given up the "cure" and the baths. They did not agree with him, he told us; and as nobody knew what special ailment they were meant to cure, none of us felt qualified to offer any advice. His moods are varying and unexpected; one day he astonishes the pension by sudden fits of loquaciousness, another by equally sudden