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solate that no one had come to meet him, and felt very shy
when the porter left him at the front door of a big white
house. An untidy lad let him in and took him into a draw-
ing-room. It was filled with a large suite covered in green
velvet, and in the middle was a round table. On this in wa-
ter stood a bouquet of flowers tightly packed together in
a paper frill like the bone of a mutton chop, and carefully
spaced round it were books in leather bindings. There was
a musty smell.
Presently, with an odour of cooking, the Frau Professor
came in, a short, very stout woman with tightly dressed hair
and a red face; she had little eyes, sparkling like beads, and
an effusive manner. She took both Philip’s hands and asked
him about Miss Wilkinson, who had twice spent a few
weeks with her. She spoke in German and in broken Eng-
lish. Philip could not make her understand that he did not
know Miss Wilkinson. Then her two daughters appeared.
They seemed hardly young to Philip, but perhaps they were
not more than twenty-five: the elder, Thekla, was as short as
her mother, with the same, rather shifty air, but with a pret-
ty face and abundant dark hair; Anna, her younger sister,
was tall and plain, but since she had a pleasant smile Phil-
ip immediately preferred her. After a few minutes of polite
conversation the Frau Professor took Philip to his room and
left him. It was in a turret, looking over the tops of the trees
in the Anlage; and the bed was in an alcove, so that when
you sat at the desk it had not the look of a bed-room at all.
Philip unpacked his things and set out all his books. He was
his own master at last.

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