Marie
answered the bell, looking the picture of misery. Her kind face was
tear-stained, and her only voice was a sob.
Bernardine drew the girl to her.
"Poor old Marie," she whispered. "Come and cry your kind heart out, and
then you will feel better. Sit by me here, and don't try to speak. And
I will make you some tea in true English fashion, and you must take it
hot, and it will do you good."
The simple sisterly kindness and silent sympathy soothed Marie after a
time. The sobs ceased, and the tears also. And Marie put her hand in her
pocket and gave Bernardine the five francs.
"Fraeulein Holme, I hate them." she said. "I could never keep them. How
could I send them now to my old mother? They would bring her ill luck--
indeed they would."
The matter was solved by Bernardine in a masterly fashion. She suggested
that Marie should buy flowers with the money, and put them on the
Dutchman's coffin. This idea comforted Marie beyond Bernardine's most
sanguine expectations.
"A beautiful tin wreath," she said several times. "I know the exact kind.
When my father died, we put one on his grave."
That same evening, during _table-d'hote_, Bernardine told the Disagreeable
Man the history of the afternoon.
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