CHAPTER II

During the long ride across the city, old Minna kept up a steady chatter. Her one idea was to comfort the girl. There was no thought of her own necessity for seeking a new position. There were plenty of places for cooks and housekeepers, but this frail little creature, who sat beside her with the black veil drawn down over her face to hide the tears, what could she do?

Presently they got off the tram, and Minna leading the way, hurried up a narrow street, filled with children and gossiping women. They turned in at a doorway next to a delicatessen shop. On the steps, a little girl of about eight, with very tightly braided hair, was hushing a fat baby to sleep. The child moved aside for them to pass, and they made their way up the long, dark stair. The air was heavy with the smell of cooking, mixed with that of hot soapsuds.

Two flights up, Minna knocked loudly at a door, in front of which a tiny point of gas was sputtering in a crooked jet.

The door was opened by a thin, little woman, in a clean calico dress, with a small black apron tied over it. She wore great round spectacles, through which her sharp black eyes twinkled. She tipped her chin in a curious way, as she looked at them.

"Ach, Minna," she cried, cordially, "come in, come in. It is so long since Shatzi and I have seen you."

She held the door wide, and Minna stood aside for Marie to enter.

"I have brought a young lady," she said, "who wants a room to live in. I told her I thought you might have a place for her."

Their hostess pushed forward a chair for Marie and motioned Minna to a seat on the sofa.

"Sit down, sit down," she said hospitably, "I'll get a cup of coffee and some _kuchen_, and then we can talk," and she bustled out to prepare refreshments for her guests.

Marie glanced about the neat little room. Against the walls were arranged stiffly, old-fashioned black horsehair chairs, each with a white knitted antimacassar pinned neatly on the back. In the window a canary fluted, his tiny throat swelling with ecstatic trills as he swung in his cage over the shining leaves of a little rubber tree. Primly in its corner stood the sofa, place of honor, where Minna now sat, her holiday finery spread out about her.

On the tiny mantel stood a crowd of china ornaments, jolly looking little dogs with huge bows about their necks, gilt and blue shepherdesses, very small vases, decorated with very large roses. In the center, a faded photograph of an empty-faced little girl with two blond braids over her shoulders, stared stiffly out of a frame made of sea shells and dried flowers twined about the ornately lettered phrase, "_In liebender Erinnerung_." Marie, reading the tender phrase, smiled wistfully. No one was so plain or so unimportant but that in some heart they were enshrined "in loving memory."

She was impressed by the spotlessness of everything. She found herself wondering, if each little object had its place marked on the shelf so that it could be put back when it had been dusted.

Over the mantel hung a brilliantly colored chromo of a sad-eyed Christ, His blue robe opened at the breast, showing a gilt and bleeding heart. There were two or three other religious pictures, but every other available space on the dingy little walls was hung with photographs of the same empty-faced little girl, in various stages of growth.

Old Minna, her hands, in their brown thread mittens, folded in her lap, sat blinking her lashless eyelids. There was always a certain dignified manner which accompanied the wearing of her best clothes, and she was wrapped in it to-day, so that Marie scarcely knew her for the same, plain-spoken, good humored old woman who had taken care of the little house in the _Blumen Strasse_.

Once or twice the girl opened her lips by way of starting a conversation, but closed them again and relapsed into an uneasy silence, suppressed by the majestic dignity of the old housekeeper.

Presently, the hostess returned with a tray, which she set on the center table, first having carefully removed the lamp and a large embossed album, and folded up into a neat square the red-fringed cloth. There was coffee in a highly decorated pot, cups equally ornate, one with a gilt initial on its side, a plate of plain cake, with a richly sugared top, and a small pitcher of milk.

"Now," she said, "while we have our coffee, we can talk. Is it a room to live in, you want?"

Marie opened her lips to answer, but Minna broke in.

"The Fräulein is the daughter of my poor master, who has just died," she said. The little old woman shook her head in pity, glancing at Marie over the edge of her spectacles like a bright-eyed bird. "She is quite poor now," continued the housekeeper, "ach, yes, even rich folks can spend all their money, and now she's all alone. I think it would be nice for you to have her here."

Their hostess tilted her chin grotesquely as she eyed the girl through her thick glasses.

"We have an extra room, yes, it would be company for me while Shatzi is away," and then quite suddenly she turned to Minna. "She looks like Frieda," she said softly, her eyes straying mistily to the many pictures of the empty-faced little girl, "she can stay with us."

Marie smiled at her gratefully, glancing somewhat dubiously at Frieda's photograph. This would be much better than going out among people of whom she knew nothing. Herr Gutman was to attend to the selling of her few belongings. Minna could close the house and send her trunk. She would go now to the solicitor's office and make arrangements.

Frau Schultz showed them the little room she was to occupy. There was a narrow yellowish wooden bed in it, with a starched counterpane and a stiffly frilled pillow sham across which was embroidered in red, "_Guten Morgen_." Over the yellow wooden dresser hung a cheap mirror. The glass was wavy and blotched in places where the mercury had worn away. Marie wondered, as she saw the distorted reflection of herself, if the compliment Frau Schultz had paid her had been deserved. A small chair completed the furnishings, excepting a small plaster figure of the Virgin against the wall, with a holy water stoup under it. It was a tiny cupboard of a place, but neat and spotless. Marie stood and looked down from the small window into the courtyard onto which it gave. Between the houses hung rows of freshly washed linen, all manner of garments swinging in shameless abandon, but the courtyard, though barren and unattractive, was scrupulously clean. She thought of the cool sweetness of the garden she was leaving, of the old locust tree and its falling blossoms, the comfortable wicker chair in which her father used to sit through the sunny mornings. She turned away with a sigh, her heart heavy, a lump rising in her throat. Frau Schultz, standing at her elbow, peered at her with her bird-like eyes, and the girl felt instinctively that she had found some one who would be kind.

She broached the price shyly, timidly it was acquiesced in by Frau Schultz, and decisively settled by the capable Minna.

Then they went back into the little parlor again, and to the accompaniment of Hanzi, the canary's, operatic warblings, Minna had two more cups of coffee and another piece of _kuchen_. Then, brushing the crumbs from her ample lap, she rose to go.

"I'll send your trunk right away, Fräulein," she said.

"When can I come to stay?" Marie asked timidly.

"As soon as you wish, Fräulein," said Frau Schultz hospitably. "You can stay now if you want to. We are very simple people. You are like our Frieda. We'll watch over you."

Marie explained that she must go to the solicitor's office and arrange her affairs, and that she would be back as soon as she could, to stay, so with many exchanges of hearty good will between Minna and Frau Schultz, and the promise of care for Marie, they started down the dark stair again, Minna to go back to the house to close it, Marie to arrange about the source of her hundred _kronen_.