United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I won't," thought Priscilla, burying her head deeper. "That poor Emma has lost the note and he's going to fuss. I won't descend." Then came Annalise's tap at her door. Priscilla did not answer. Annalise tapped again. Priscilla did not answer, but turning her head face upwards composed herself to an appearance of sleep. Annalise tapped a third time.
Priscilla then opened her mouth to tell her what she thought of her. Immediately Annalise's swift sponge stopped it up. "Your Grand Ducal Highness," said Annalise, washing Priscilla's mouth with a thoroughness and an amount of water suggestive of its not having been washed for months, "told me only yesterday that weeping was a terrible schreckliche waste of time.
But neither Priscilla nor Fritzing knew anything of Annalise's mind, and if they had they would instantly have forgotten it again, of such extreme unimportance would it have seemed.
Yet though so small and so ancient it was to have several bathrooms one for each of them, so he understood; "For," said the Princess, "if Annalise hasn't a bathroom how can she have a bath? And if she hasn't had a bath how can I let her touch me?" "Perhaps," said Fritzing, bold in his ignorance of Annalise's real nature, "she could wash at the pump. People do, I believe, in the country.
There would be a palace, and warmth, and light, and food, and welcome, and honour, and appreciative lacqueys with beautiful white silk calves alas, Annalise's ideal, her one ideal, was to be for ever where there were beautiful white silk calves.
Is it seemly to keep the Princess waiting?" "I am not a cook," said Annalise defiantly. "I was not engaged as a cook, I never was a cook, and I will not be a cook." Fritzing flung down the bill and came and glared close into Annalise's face. "Not a cook?" he cried. "You, a German girl, the daughter of poor parents, you are not ashamed to say it? You do not hide your head for shame?
Over the bathroom was the attic. This was Annalise's bedroom. Nobody thought there would be any difficulty about that either; nobody, in fact, thought anything about anything. It was a simple place, after the manner of attics, with a window in its sloping ceiling through which stars might be studied with great comfort as one lay in bed.
I think it is true; and if it is, then the vacancy of Annalise's mind may be measured by the fact that what she demanded of life in return for the negative services of not crying and wringing her hands was nothing less filled with food and sofas and servants than a grand ducal palace.
It was on such idle days as the day Fritzing went to Minehead that sillinesses assailed her soul shrinkings of the flesh from honest calico, disgust at the cooking, impatience at Annalise's swollen eyes.
It was now Annalise's turn to stare, and she stood for a moment doing it, her face changing from white to red while Fritzing turned his back and taking out a pencil made little sums on the margin of the bill. "Herr Geheimrath, I am not a cook," she said at last, swallowing her indignation. "What, still there?" he exclaimed, looking up sharply. "Unworthy one, get thee quickly to the kitchen.
Word Of The Day