ound the table with greedy eyes,
clapping their hands. There were four of them--the youngest a mite of
two or three, who only babbled with the others; the eldest, a pale
little girl of seven or eight years.

"Children! Just let me catch you!" scolded the mother; but her voice
shook with nervous excitement.

"Please, Frau Wander, won't you cut the children some bread first? We
can talk afterward."

In a twinkling the eldest girl had fetched a knife from the kitchen,
the children continuing to clap their hands delightedly, and Frau
Wander cut them large slices, and while she was so engaged, "We have
never had anything given us, Herr Doctor," she said; "we have always
earned our living with honest work. It is hard to have to come to this;
but what can you do when the police put a rope round your neck?"

"You must not worry any longer, dear Frau Wander," said Wilhelm, "but
you must not speak like that of the police. You do yourself no good by
it, and perhaps a great deal of harm. We will do what we can for you.
Never mind about the rent. You will stay on quietly here, and allow me
to assist you with this trifle." He pressed two twenty-mark pieces into
the half-reluctant hand so unused to accepting alms. "And Herr Stubbe
will give you the same sum every month till you are able to join your
husband."

He held out his hand, which she grasped in silence, incapable of
finding suitable words to thank him, and he hurried to the door. The
mechanic hastily snatched up the candle from the table, ran after him
and lighted him downstairs, murmuring with real emotion:

"Thank you a thousand times, Herr Doctor, and may God bless you!"

And all the way downstairs Wilhelm was followed by the children's
jubilant song of "Bread! bread!"

One morning a few days later--it was December the 2d--as Wilhelm was
sitting at his writing-table engaged in making notes from a thick
English book of travels on the Australian savage's ideas on nature, he
heard a sound of quarreling going on in the hall. He could distinguish
Frau Muller's irate tones, and then a man's voice mentioning his name.
He gave no further heed to the dispute, thinking it was doubtless some
importune person in whom worthy Frau Muller had detected the
professional beggar, and was therefore driving away. But it did not
leave off, and grew louder and louder, Frau Muller's voice rising at
last to an exasperated scream--there even seemed to be something like a
hand-to-hand fight