as long as Rose could remember anything, had been
the outstanding feature of each twenty-fifth of December
in her young life.

Yes, it had indeed been a dull and dreary Christmas
for Anna! Last year she had received a number of
delightful presents from Berlin. These had included
a marzipan sausage, a marzipan turnip, and a wonderful
toy Zeppelin made of sausage -- a real sausage
fitted with a real screw, a rudder, and at each end a
flag.

But this autumn, as the weeks had gone by without
bringing any answer to her affectionate letters,
she had told herself that Minna, or if not Minna then
Willi, would surely write for Christmas. And most
bitterly disappointed had Anna felt when the Christmas
week went by bringing no letter.

In vain Mrs. Otway told her that perhaps Willi
and Minna felt, as so many Germans were said to do,
such hatred of England that they did not care even
to send a letter to someone living there. To Anna
this seemed quite impossible. It was far more likely
that the cruel English Post Office had kept back the
letter because it came from Germany.

Now it was New Year's Day, and after having
heard her mistress go out, Anna, sore at heart, reminded
herself that were she now in service in Germany
she would have already received this morning a
really handsome money gift, more a right than a perquisite,
from her mistress. She did not remind herself
that this yearly benefaction is always demanded back
by a German employer of his servant, if that servant is
discharged, owing to her own fault, within a year.

Yes, England was indeed an ill-organized country!

[[278]]

p277 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p278w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p279

v?