s
plate aside sulkily and stopped eating.

Why did she not answer him? Why did she not tell him something like
what Frau Laemke had told her Frida? Had he not been born as well? And
had not his mother been pleased, too, when he was born? It was very
nasty of her that she did not tell him anything about it. Could she not
see how much, how awfully much he wanted to know something about
it?

A burning curiosity was aroused in the child all at once. It
tortured him, positively devoured him. He would not be able to sleep
the whole night, he would have to think of it again and again. And he
wanted to sleep, it was tiresome to lie awake--he wanted to know it he
must know it.

Kate saw how gloomy the boy's face had grown. Oh, the poor, poor
boy. If only she had not let him go to those people. What had he been
told there? What did he know? Had they made him suspicious? What
did those people know? Oh, they had made him suspicious, otherwise
why should he have tormented her with such questions?

A burning dread filled her mind, and yet her hands and feet were
growing as cold as ice. But her compassion was even greater than her
dread--there he sat, looking so sad and with tears in his eyes. The
poor child, who wanted to know something about his birth, and whom she
could not, would not, dared not tell anything. Oh, if only she could
think of something to say, only find the right word.

"Woelfchen," she said gently, "you are still too young to hear about
it--I can't tell you about it yet. Another time. You don't understand
it yet. When you're older--I'll tell you it another time."

"No, now." She had gone up to him, and he caught hold of her dress
and held her fast. He persisted with the dull obstinacy that was
peculiar to him: "Now. I will know it--I must know it."

"But I--I've no time, Woelfchen. I have to go--yes, I really must go,
it's high time." Her eyes wandered about the room, and she felt quite
flustered: "I--no, I can't tell you anything."

"You will not," he said. "And still Frau Laemke told her Frida it."
The sulky peevish expression had disappeared from the boy's dark face,
and made way for one of real sadness. "You don't love me half so much,
not in the same way as Frau Laemke loves her Frida."

She did not love him?--she did not love him?--Kate could have
screamed. If any mother loved her child it was surely she, and still
this child felt instinctively that something was wanting. And was not
that mysteriou