To my great delight, there is not one ugly name in our little household, although composed of eight members, commencing with Queen Esther as mamma has been named; then we four girls—­la Dame Chatelaine, with her fair face, dark, pensive eyes, and modest dignity; Gabrielle, or Tourbillon, our brilliant pet, and the youngest of our quartette, although her graceful figure rises above the rest of us; my sister Marguerite, la Gentille Demoiselle; and I, Cecilia.

Then come the household retinue:  Bernard, the coachman, already introduced, a smart-looking young Irishman, whom the maids always find very beguiling; Lina, the autocrat of the kitchen, a little, wiry-looking woman from Stockholm, formerly cook, so she says, to King Charles of Sweden; and Minna, the maid.

Minna is a pretty young Bavarian, who has been only fifteen days in the Land of Liberty, but she has already learnt, I am amused to see, not to address a lady as “gnaedige Frau,” or “Fraeulein”—­a style of address imperative in South Germany from a maid to her mistress.  Minna has not, however, imbibed all of the democratic principles that will, I fear, come to her only too soon, for she has not yet learnt to emulate her mistress in dress.  It is really quite refreshing to see a servant dressed as a servant.  Minna is the perfection of neatness, and her plain stuff or print gowns are sans reproche in their freshness.  In the matter of aprons she must be quite reckless, for they always look as if just from the ironing-table.  They are made, too, in an especially pretty fashion that I have never before seen out of Munich.  Scorning chignons, Minna appears with her own luxuriant hair in massive braids wound about her well-shaped head, and as to-day is Sunday and a Fest-tag, she adorns herself with a large shell-comb.  She has very pretty, coquettish ways, that have already melted the heart of our hitherto unsusceptible Bernard, and it is quite charming to hear her attempts to converse with him in her broken English.

Minna came to me this morning directly after breakfast, and said, “Where shall I go to church, Fraeulein Cecilia?”

“I do not really know, Minna,” I replied.  “You are a Lutheran, I suppose?”

“Yes, Fraeulein Cecilia.”

“There is no church of that sort here,” I said, “but there is a Reformed Church next door.”

With a very doubtful expression, she said:  “I will see, Fraeulein.  And bitte, is not the Pfingsten a Fest-tag in America?  In our country, you know, it is more than Sunday, and the people always amuse themselves.”

I explained to her as clearly as I could, that Pfingsten (Whit-Sunday) was only a Fest-tag in her church, mine, and the Church of England, and that it was never in this country a Fest-tag, outside of the religious observance.

A very perplexed face was the result of my explanations; why Pfingsten should not be Pfingsten the world over, and a public holiday with all sorts of merry-makings, she could not understand.