The princess had never toiled with her fingers except on the piano.

Gretchen had plucked geese and dug vegetables with hers.
They were rough, but toil had not robbed them of their natural grace.
"How was she ?" her highness asked.
"About the same, Highness." "Have you wondered why she should write to me ?" "Highness, it was natural that I should," was Gretchen's frank admission.
"She took me in when nobody knew who I was, clothed and fed me, and taught me music so that some day I should not be helpless when the battle of life began.

Ah," impulsively, "had I my way she would be housed in the palace, not in the lonely Krumerweg.

But my father does not know that she is in Dreiberg; and we dare not tell him, for he still believes that she had something to do with my abduction." Then she stopped.

She was strangely making this peasant her confidante.