t of town.

Dr. Schneibel talked both kindly and severely, both good-naturedly and
sharply: he was almost like a father.

Barbara felt a pang of fear every time she saw him come down the street,
and turn in by the rotten, mouldy wooden fence. She watched him like a
bird that is afraid for her nest, and was sitting close to the wall in
the darkest corner with the cradle behind her, when he opened the door.
It was impossible for her to answer except by a sob. The tinsmith's wife
did all the talking with: "Why, bless me, yes!" and "Bless me, no!" and
"Just so, doctor!" in garrulous superabundance, while Barbara only sat
and meditated on taking her baby on her back and departing.

But to-day the doctor had talked so very kindly to her and offered her
so much money. He had appealed so directly to her conscience, patted the
child, and said that when it came to the point, he was sure she was not
the mother who could be so cruel as to bring misery upon such a pretty
little fellow, let him suffer want, let his pretty little feet be cold,
when he might lie both comfortable and warm and like a little prince in
his cradle!

It was not possible to resist, and in her emotion something like a half
promise escaped her.

Afterwards a neighbour came in and was of exactly the same opinion, and
told of all the little children whom she had known that had died of want
and neglect, only in the houses round about, during the last two years,
because their mothers had had to go out and work all day and could not
pay any one to look after them. And she and the tinsmith's wife both
spoke at once about the same thing--only the same thing.

Barbara sat listening and tending her child. Her heart felt like
breaking. For a moment she thought of going, not to Hoegden, but in
another way, home with him at once.

It was a temptation.

That night she broke into sobs so ungovernable, that, in order not to
disturb the household in their slumbers, she went out into the soft,
drizzling rain: it quieted and cooled her.

As she was standing the next morning, helping a neighbour's wife to
rinse and wring the clothes by the brook, a pony-carriage stopped in the
road. The coachman--he had gold lace on his hat and coat--got down and
went in to the tinsmith's.

"You must wring that sheet right out, Barbara," said the neighbour's
wife; "it'll be the last you'll wring here, for that's the Consul's
carriage."

And Barbara wrung the sheet until there was no