The Wisdom of Father Brown

had been famous in the world as the Englischer Garten, and deliberately recalled on what might be the last ni

fortify her for the momentous r?le she was to play with the dawn; but in this rare hour of leisure it

edged one another never to marry. The causes of this vital conclave were both cumulative and immediate. Their father, the Herr Graf, a fine looking junker of sixty odd, with a roving eye and a martial air despite a corpulence which annoyed him excessive

udent class. Lili had a charming voice and was consumed with ambition to be an operatic star. She had summoned her courage upon one memorable occasion and broached the subject to her father. All the terrified family had expect

Kaiser took a whim and altered a date, there was no deviation from this routine year in and out. They walked at the same hour, drove in the Tiergarten with the rest of fashionable Berlin, started for their castle in the Saxon Alps not only upon the same day but on the same train every summe

merely intensified by their father's persistence of executive ardors) had it not been for two subtle influences, quite unsuspected by the haughty Kammerherr: they h

ed herself sowing the seeds of rebellion in the minds of "those poor Niebuhr girls." As the countess also liked her, she had been "in and out of the house" for nearly a year. The young Prussians had alternately gasped and wept at the amazing stories of the liberty, the petting, the procession of "good times" enjoyed by American girls of their own class,

huddled in her bed after the opera and listened to an incisive account of her brief but distasteful period of matrimony. Not that she suffered from tyranny. Quite the reverse. Of her several suitors she had cannily engineered into her father's favor a young man of pleasing appearance, good title and fortune,

or other, when all those tiresome women are not at my own. And what do you suppose they talk about-but invariably? Love!" (With ineffable disdain.) "Nothing else, barring gossip and scandal; as if they got any good out of love! But they are stupid for the most part and gorged with love novels. They discuss the opera or the play for the love element only, or the sensual quality of the music. Let me tell you that although I married to get rid of papa, if I had it to do over I should accept parental tyranny as the lesser evil. Not that I am not fond of Karl in a way. He is a dear and would be

his naked ratiocination, but Gisela

orals, and, what is worse, no baths. A burgess or a professional would be quite as intolerable, and no man of our class would c

ttic. They vowed never to marry even if their fo

eat too much, and Gisela has a tendency to plumpness. But your turn will not c

marriage, although arranged by the two families, had been a love match on both sides. The Graf was a handsome dashing and passionate lover and she a beautiful girl, lively and companionable. Disillusio

hat. She manufactured interests for herself as rapidly, and as various, as possible, preserved her good looks in spite of her eight children (the two that followed Gisela died in infancy), dressed far better than most German women, cultivated society, gave four notable musicales a season, and was devoted to her sons and daughters, although she never opposed her husband's stern military discipline of those seem

ions), consult her own selfish whims by having nerves and lying speechless in bed. But he had a very considerable respect for Herr Doktor Meyers-a rank plebeian but the best doctor in Berlin-and when that family adviser, as autocratic as himself, ordered the Frau Gr?fin to go to a sana

sorts of Austria. She was solitary, for the most part, and she did an excessive amount of thinking. She returned to her duties with a deep d

at a yearly talk-fest with his old brothers in arms, confided to their mother their resolution

e as he suspects it. I'll find the weak spot in each of the su

would disgrace his family, and that is the end of it. Moreover, he regards women of any class in public life as a disgrace to

r?fin, her youngest daughter shrewdly surmised, rather encouraged these exciting tempers-arguing that these three girls bade fair to remain on his

left a surprisingly small estate for one who had presented so pompous a front to the world. But not only had his sons been handsomely portioned when they entered the army, and Mariette when she married, but the excellent count,

retire to her castle in the Saxon Alps. As there were no port

and she calculated that with a meager staff of servants and two years of seclusion she should be able to furnish a flat in Berlin and pay a year's rent in advance. Then by living for half

n Dresden, where Mariette's husband was now quartered. It was just before they moved to th

ou will. You have been bred aristocrats and aristocrats you will remain. It is not liberty that vulgarizes. Don't hate men. They have charming phases and moods; but avoid entangling alliances

idden to speak with any one in the corridor. And forced to carry all the hand-luggage off the train (when your father had an economical spasm and would not take a footman) while he stalked out first as if we did not exist. I shall never marry again-Gott in Himmel, no!

fect herself in French and English. She took a small room in an old tower near the Frauenkirche and lived the students' life, probably the freest of any city in the world. She dropped her title and name lest she be barred from that socialistic community as well as discovered by horrified relatives, and called herself Gisela D?ring. Afte

ar Harbor; and when not occupying these stations were in Europe or southern Cali

es Mrs. Boland had a violent attack of "America first" and took her children and their admirable governess not only to California but to the Yellowstone Park, the Grand Ca?on and Canada. They traveled in a private car, and Gisela, who could enjoy the comfortless quarters of a student flat in Munich with all th