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FRÄULEIN

I

THE STORY OF "WHY FRÄULEIN HAD TO BECOME A GOVERNESS"

When Fräulein was a child in Germany, her parents lived in the greatest luxury. They had everything money can buy. They were immensely rich. They lived in an actual castle, and had their own horses and carriages, and at least ten servants. They had an estate in the country, and went with nothing but the nobility. Fräulein's mother never went out driving without two men on the box.

If any one in her childhood had even mentioned to Fräulein that one fine day she would have to earn her own living, she would have laughed in their face. She was brought up to have not the slightest regard for money. For who ever thought that tkey would ever need it? If they had wanted to they could have thrown gold by the handfuls out of the window, and it wouldn't have mattered in the least.

Fräulein was brought up like a little princess. She used to have her own horses, and a pony cart, and whenever she went out, people used to turn around in the street and look at her. But then her parents lost all their money. And so Fräulein had to go and earn her own living. No one knows what a thing it is to have to earn your own bread in the house of strangers who look on you as if you were a common servant! And the worst of it is that if you'd have your rights, you'd be as rich as the richest people, and far, far from here!


II

THE STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THERE WASN'T ROOM FOR FRÄULEIN AT THE SECOND-CABIN TABLE

When Fräulein went to Europe the last time, to see her dear parents, she travelled second cabin.

Everybody knows you have much more fun in the second cabin than in the first. In the first place, you can dance and sing all night if you want to, and on Fräulein's steamer they sang a song every night that was the drollest thing, all about the different Meyers—Obermeyers and Mittelmeyers and Untermeyers. It was to laugh yourself dead over. Most of the first-cabin passengers were dying to come over to the second cabin, because it wasn't so stiff and for-