Fancy, poor darling mamma gone to her grave, and I, her cherished child, forced to earn my bread as companion to this haughty old baroness, who thinks me like the dust under her feet! Ah, it is sad, is it not, doggie ?" The retriever sniffed again, while the blue eyes continued to look down upon him through a haze of tears; and then, the girl was silent for a time.
"Heigho, doggie," she exclaimed, after a short pause of reflection, brushing away the tear drops from her cheeks and shaking her dainty little head as if she would fain banish all her painful imaginings with the action, "I must not repine at my lot, for the good Father above has taken care of me through all my adversity, giving me a comfortable home when I, an orphan, had none to look after me.

And, the good baroness, too--she may be haughty, but then she is of a very noble family, and has been brought up like most German ladies of rank to look down upon her inferiors in position; besides, she is kind to me in her way.

I am pleased that she took it into her head to come off here to seek for her son, and bring him presents from home in person.

Nothing else would suit her, if you please, on his birthday, although the young baron, I think, was not over-delighted at his mother coming to hunt for him in war time, as if he were a little boy--he on the staff of the general! I fancy he got no little chaff from his brother officers in consequence.
However, `it is an ill wind that blows nobody good,' for the good baroness being here has been seized with a freak for looking after the wounded, because the Princess of Alten-Schlossen goes in for that sort of thing; and thus it is, doggie, that I'm now attending to this poor fellow here.

Though, how on earth Armand parted with you, and you became attached to this new master, whom you seem to love with such affection, I'm sure I cannot tell!" Fritz at this moment turned in the little pallet bed on which he was lying, and in an instant the girl was up from her seat and bending over him.
"Restless ?" she said, smoothing the pillows and laying her cool hand on the hot brow of her patient, who gave vent to a sigh of satisfaction in his sleep.