ut of
her hands and ran to the stove, in which big logs of wood were
crackling and spluttering.

"Are you mad?" She saw what he was going to do--he intended burning it.
She was at his side in one bound, and, tearing the packet out of his
hand, she hid it in her pocket.

"Give me it, give me it!" he cried.

She laughed at him and pressed her hand tightly against her pocket.

Then he began to wail and lament. Alas, alas, what had he done? How
could he ever have been so foolish as to bring such a thing into the
house? He would never have another peaceful hour, he would always be
thinking that an accident might happen.

"But why," she asked in a calm voice, looking at him fixedly with her
black eyes, "should an accident happen?"

"Alas, alas!" he moaned, and buried his head in his hands.

She had to comfort him. Her words calmed him; he was like a child. Then
he asked her to stroke him; she did that also. At last he wanted to be
helped to bed; he must have been drinking, although he denied it. The
maid had to come as well; and whilst she took off his riding-boots he
put his heavy head on his wife's shoulder, and she had to hold him in
her arms.

When they had got him to bed they both looked very hot and flushed, for
he had been pinching them in fun and had pretended to be quite
helpless.

Then he sent for Roeschen, whom he had not seen the whole day, for she
was already on her way to school when he was still snoring in bed, and
when he drove to Gnesen she had not yet returned. And now [Pg 39] he
longed for some one to fondle him. And the little girl knew very well
what her father wanted; so she climbed up on his bed and laid her thin
little arms round his neck and pressed her cool cheek to his. Then
he talked to her in whispers and called her by an the pet names he
could think of. She was his little red-haired girlie, his star, his
song-bird, the apple of his eye, his sun, his balm of Gilead, his
guardian angel, the key which was to open the door of heaven for him.
And the child smiled and stroked him with her soft hands. She loved him
so. He gave her everything her mother would not give her.

Still, she loved her mother in secret. Didn't everybody call her "the
beautiful Mrs. Tiralla"? Didn't the schoolmaster, who was always so
harsh, often send a message to her mother, and even pardon her faults
and favour her just because she was the daughter of the beautiful Mrs.
Tiralla? Rosa knew that she was not pretty;