t August roused in him: he hated and despised himself
for the barter of the heirloom of his race, and every word of the
child stung him with a stinging sense of shame.

And he spoke in his wrath rather than in his sorrow.

"You are a little fool," he said, harshly, as they had never
heard him speak. "You rave like a play-actor. Get up and go to
bed. The stove is sold. There is no more to be said. Children
like you have nothing to do with such matters. The stove is sold,
and goes to Munich to-morrow. What is it to you? Be thankful I
can get bread for you. Get on your legs, I say, and go to bed."

Strehla took up the jug of ale as he paused, and drained it
slowly as a man who had no cares.

August sprang to his feet and threw his hair back off his face;
the blood rushed into his cheeks, making them scarlet; his great
soft eyes flamed alight with furious passion.

"You _dare_ not!" he cried, aloud, "you dare not sell it, I say!
It is not yours alone; it is ours----"

Strehla flung the emptied jug on the bricks with a force that
shivered it to atoms, and, rising to his feet, struck his son a
blow that felled him to the floor. It was the first time in all
his life that he had ever raised his hand against any one of his
children.

Then he took the oil-lamp that stood at his elbow and stumbled
off to his own chamber with a cloud before his eyes.

"What has happened?" said August, a little while later, as he
opened his eyes and saw Dorothea weeping above him on the
wolf-skin before the stove. He had been struck backward, and his
head had fallen on the hard bricks where the wolf-skin did not
reach. He sat up a moment, with his face bent upon his hands.

"I remember now," he said, very low, under his breath.

Dorothea showered kisses on him, while her tears fell like rain.

"But, oh, dear, how could you speak so to father?" she murmured.
"It was very wrong."

"No, I was right," said August, and his little mouth, that
hitherto had only curled in laughter, curved downward with a
fixed and bitter seriousness. "How dare he? How dare he?" he
muttered, with his head sunk in his hands. "It is not his alone.
It belongs to us all. It is as much yours and mine as it is his."

Dorothea could only sob in answer. She was too frightened to
speak. The authority of their parents in the house had never in
her remembrance been questioned.

"Are you hurt by the fall, dear August?" she murmured, at length,
for he looked to her so