Following them close, there entered the dining-room a woman who painted pictures and sold them.  Hedwig Vogel was about fifty, tall, angular, hard-featured.  She was reported to be very rich and very mean.  Moreover, she was an undoubted democrat; for when Elsa von Ente’s lady patron came to the house, everybody kissed the august dame’s hand except Hedwig Vogel and “the Mees.”  Of course “the Mees,” poor thing! knew no better; but FrA¤ulein Vogel!—­a woman guilty of such a misdemeanor was capable of putting dynamite in Bismarck’s night-cap.  She responded curtly to the greeting given to her by the Von Entes, and then asked where the Frau Pastorin might be.

“Here,” answered a soft voice, and the plump, smiling, suave mistress of the house entered and seated herself at the table.  As she bowed her head to invoke a blessing on the smoked herring, the raw ham, the salad, the three kinds of bread, a tardy boarder opened the dining-room door.  She stood on the threshold for a minute, then moved swiftly to her place.

“Good-evening, Mees,” said the Frau Pastorin, and “Good-evening, Mees,” echoed the Von Entes.  FrA¤ulein Vogel contented herself with a nod, and attacked bread and ham in hungry silence.

“Your walk has given you a fine color,” the Frau Pastorin continued blandly.  Then, turning to the artist, “You should paint the Mees, FrA¤ulein.  ‘A Study of America.’  That would sound well, would it not?”

The Study of America smiled a little disdainfully, and refused the raw ham and the herring offered to her by Elsa von Ente.  She had refused raw ham and smoked herring at least a hundred times, but yet the Frau Pastorin protested.

“I am sad there is nothing for you,” she murmured in English,—­a language she fondly fancied she spoke.

“Oh, there is bread galore,” said the Mees.

This set the hostess to thinking.  Bread she understood; but what was bread galore?

“I should like to learn some American dishes,” she said.  “Buckwhit cakes, —­so, is it right?—­I have read of them.  How you would relish them to-night, would you not?”

“No,” said Mees ungraciously.

“Not?” said the Von Entes, who talked together habitually.  “But what then?”

“Beef—­mutton—­chickens,” said Mees.

“We have them here,” murmured the Frau Pastorin sweetly.

“Do you?” said Mees, quite as sweetly.  And Hedwig Vogel burst out laughing.  The Frau Pastorin bit her lip, the Von Ente girls looked blank, and Annette scuttled away, smelling danger from afar, for she knew full well that she often received a vicarious reproof.