All these young gentlemen made bows which were, in their respective ways, triumphs of awkwardness, with the exception of one of our compatriots, who appeared to believe that himself and his manners were formed to charm and subdue the opposite sex. We then sat down, and Fräulein Sartorius immediately opened a conversation with me.
"_Sprechen Sie Deutsch, Fräulein?_" was her first venture, and having received my admission that I did not speak a word of it, she continued, in good English:
"Now I can talk to you without offending you. It is so dreadful when English people who don't know German persist in thinking that they do. There was an English-woman here who always said _wer_ when she meant where, and _wo_ when she meant who. She said the sounds confused her."
The boys giggled at this, but the joke was lost upon me.
"What is your name?" she continued; "I didn't catch what Frau Steinmann said."
"May Wedderburn," I replied, angry with myself for blushing so excessively as I saw that all the boys held their spoons suspended, listening for my answer.
"May--_das heisst Mai_," said she, turning to the assembled youths, who testified that they were aware of it, and the Dutch boy, Brinks, inquired, gutturally:
"You haf one zong in your language what calls itself, 'Not always Mai,' haf you not?"
"Yes," said I, and all the boys began to giggle as if something clever had been said. Taken all in all, what tortures have I not suffered from those dreadful boys. Shy when they ought to have been bold, and bold where a modest retiringness would better have become them. Giggling inanely at everything and nothing. Noisy and vociferous among themselves or with inferiors; shy, awkward and blushing with ladies or in refined society--distressing my feeble efforts to talk to them by their silly explosions of laughter when one of them was addressed. They formed the bane of my life for some time.
"Will you let me paint you?" said Fräulein Sartorius, whose big eyes had been surveying me in a manner that made me nervous.
"Your likeness, I mean. You are very pretty, and we never see that color of hair here."
"No, I'm only a _Studentin_ yet; but I paint from models. Well, will you sit to me?"
"Oh, I don't know. If I have time, perhaps."