e knew about the matter; and, if both should get tangled up,
she would ask Father Jansen about it. And then Walter would soon be
as wise as she was.

Walter withdrew; i. e., after he had kissed Femke heartily. This
meeting with her, the mysterious book, salvation, the fight with the
boys--all these things would run through his mind whenever he tried
to think of the poem. It seemed to him that there was some connection
between them.

When he got home he turned through Stoffel's books, hoping to find
something about holy vessels, ivory towers, and immaculate virgins. But
they were all school books, and gave information about everything
else but salvation. Walter was crushed, but he was still searching.

"Master Pennewip had a father and mother; and certainly old Pennewip,
too, who slaughtered hogs; and the one before him, too--but who was the
first Pennewip? And who slaughtered the hogs before old Pennewip? And
before there were any hogs, what did butchers do? And----"

I will know all of that some day, Walter thought. If he could have only
quieted himself so well about his poem! If that were only written, he
thought, then he would clear up the lost causes of everything. In the
meanwhile he dreamed of Femke, of her blue eyes, her friendliness,
her soft lips--and of her voice, when she said, "You are a dear,
sweet boy."

Could it be that she is Omicron? he thought.

And thus the child dreamed, dreamed; and, just as in the development
of humanity, in his life was working a three-fold impulse, towards
love, knowledge, and conflict.

"But Walter, don't you read any books at home about the creed?"

Thus Femke questioned her little friend the next day, as he sat on
her basket again.

"Yes, but they're not pretty."

"Don't you know anything by heart?"

Walter repeated a stanza of a reformed church hymn. This found no
favor with Femke; though she liked his reciting.

"Don't you read anything else?"

Walter reflected: he flew through Stoffel's library--works of the
Poetical Society, Geology by Ippel, On Orthography, Regulations
for the Fire-Watch, Story of Joseph by Hulshoff, Brave Henry, Jacob
Among His Children, Sermons by Hellendoorn, A Catechism by the same,
Hoorn's Song-book.

He felt that all of this would not prove very imposing for
Femke. Finally:

"I do know something, but it isn't about faith and the creed. It's
about Glorioso."

Femke promised to listen, and he began to relate the story. At first