They conversed during the meal.

The maid talked about her cats and dogs; the man told her about his books.

When the maid wanted anything, she called the man Ludwig; and when the man addressed his companion, he called her simply Marie.
After dinner, they went to the library to look at the late newspapers.
Ludwig himself made the coffee, after which he read the papers, and dictated his comments and criticisms on certain articles to Marie, who wrote them out in her delicate hair-line chirography.
When Ludwig and Marie separated for the afternoon, he touched his lips to her hand and brow.

Marie then returned to her own apartments, played the hand-organ for her pets, changed her dolls' toilets, counted her gains or losses at cards, colored with her paints a few of the illustrations in the magazines, looked through her "Orbis pictus," reading without difficulty the text which was printed in four languages, and read for the hundredth time her favorite "Robinson Crusoe." And thus passed day after day, from spring until autumn, from autumn until spring.
Evenings, when Marie prepared for bed, before she undressed herself, she spread a heavy silken coverlet over the leather lounge which stood near the door.

She knew very well that the some one she called Ludwig slept every night on the lounge, but he came in so late, and went away so early in the morning, that she never heard his coming or his going.
The little maid was a sound sleeper, and the pugs never barked at the master of the house, who gave them lumps of sugar.
Often the little maid had determined that she would not go to sleep until she heard Ludwig come into the room.