Now you would not think that any great mischief could be done by the mere remark that Franziska was a pretty girl.  Anybody who had seen Franziska Fahler, niece of the proprietor of the “Goldenen Bock” in Huferschingen, would admit that in a moment.  But this is nevertheless true, that our important but diminutive Queen Tita was very thoughtful during the rest of our walk to this little church; and in church, too, she was thinking so deeply that she almost forgot to look at the effect of the decorations she had nailed up the day before.  Yet nothing could have offended in the bare observation that Franziska was a pretty girl.

At dinner in the evening we had our two guests and a few young fellows from London who did not happen to have their families or homes there.  Curiously enough, there was a vast deal of talk about travelling, and also about Baden, and more particularly about the southern districts of Baden.  Tita said the Black Forest was the most charming place in the world; and as it was Christmas Day, and as we had been listening to a sermon all about charity and kindness and consideration for others, nobody was rude enough to contradict her.  But our forbearance was put to a severe test when, after dinner, she produced a photographic album and handed it round, and challenged everybody to say whether the young lady in the corner was not absolutely lovely.  Most of them said that she was certainly very nice-looking; and Tita seemed a little disappointed.

I perceived that it would no longer do to say that Franziska was a pretty girl.  We should henceforth have to swear by everything we held dear that she was absolutely lovely.

II—­ZUM “GOLDENEN BOCK”

We felt some pity for the lad when we took him abroad with us; but it must be confessed that at first he was not a very desirable travelling companion.  There was a gloom about him.  Despite the eight months that had elapsed, he professed that his old wound was still open.  Tita treated him with the kindest maternal solicitude, which was a great mistake; tonics, not sweets, are required in such cases.  Yet he was very grateful, and he said, with a blush, that, in any case, he would not rail against all women because of the badness of one.  Indeed, you would not have fancied he had any great grudge against womankind.  There were a great many English abroad that autumn, and we met whole batches of pretty girls at every station and at every table d’hote on our route.  Did he avoid them, or glare at them savagely, or say hard things of them?  Oh no! quite the reverse.  He was a little shy at first; and when he saw a party of distressed damsels in a station, with their bewildered father in vain attempting to make himself understood to a porter, he would assist them in a brief and businesslike manner as if it were a duty, lift his cap, and then march off relieved.  But by-and-by he began to make acquaintances in the hotel; and as he was a handsome, English-looking lad, who bore a certificate of honesty in his clear gray eyes and easy gait, he was rather made much of.  Nor could any fault be decently found with his appetite.