"Why, nothing," answered Mrs. Gerhardt, in the same language. She
was decidedly taken aback at his question. "He did call two or three
times."

"You didn't tell me that," he returned, a sense of her frailty in
tolerating and shielding such weakness in one of their children
irritating him.

"No," she replied, absolutely nonplussed. "He has only been here
two or three times."

"Two or three times!" exclaimed Gerhardt, the German tendency to
talk loud coming upon him. "Two or three times! The whole neighborhood
talks about it. What is this, then?"

"He only called two or three times," Mrs. Gerhardt repeated
weakly.

"Weaver comes to me on the street," continued Gerhardt, "and tells
me that my neighbors are talking of the man my daughter is going with.
I didn't know anything about it. There I stood. I didn't know what to
say. What kind of a way is that? What must the man think of me?"

"There is nothing the matter," declared the mother, using an
effective German idiom. "Jennie has gone walking with him once or
twice. He has called here at the house. What is there now in that for
the people to talk about? Can't the girl have any pleasure at
all?"

"But he is an old man," returned Gerhardt, voicing the words of
Weaver. "He is a public citizen. What should he want to call on a girl
like Jennie for?"

"I don't know," said Mrs. Gerhardt, defensively. "He comes here to
the house. I don't know anything but good about the man. Can I tell
him not to come?"

Gerhardt paused at this. All that he knew of the Senator was
excellent. What was there now that was so terrible about it?

"The neighbors are so ready to talk. They haven't got anything else
to talk about now, so they talk about Jennie. You know whether she is
a good girl or not. Why should they say such things?" and tears came
into the soft little mother's eyes.

"That is all right," grumbled Gerhardt, "but he ought not to want
to come around and take a girl of her age out walking. It looks bad,
even if he don't mean any harm."

At this moment Jennie came in. She had heard the talking in the
front bedroom, where she slept with one of the children, but had not
suspected its import. Now her mother turned her back and bent over the
table where she was making biscuit, in order that her daughter might
not see her red eyes.

"What's the matter?" she inquired, vaguely troubled by the tense
stillness in the attitude of both her parents.

"Nothing," said Gerhardt