ed not worry
about him, my dear lady. He certainly has to do without his playfellows
at present, for a boy and girl are ill, and he feels bored when alone
with the fat boy who is still left. He is generally by himself in the
garden; Friedrich has given him some lettuce plants, and he has also
sown some radishes. I have found him at his lessons as well."

Thank God! It seemed to the woman as if she could breathe freely
now, as though free from a load. She carried the letter from her old
friend about in her pocket for a long time, read it whilst out for a
walk, when sitting on a bench and in the evening when lying in bed. "A
boy and girl are ill"--oh, the poor children. What could be the matter
with them? But thank God, he was mostly by himself in the
garden now. That was the best.

She wrote a letter to her boy, a very bright one, and he answered
her in the same strain. The letter in itself was certainly rather
funny. "Beloved mother"--how comical. And the whole wording as though
copied from a polite letter-writer. She made up her mind to enclose it
in her next letter to her husband what would he say to it? "Beloved
mother"--but it pleased her all the same, and also "Your obedient son"
at the end of it. Otherwise the letter really contained nothing,
nothing of what he was doing, not even anything about the Laemkes, also
no longing "come back soon"; but it was written carefully, tidily and
clearly, not such a scrawl as he usually wrote. And that showed her
that he loved her.

He had also enclosed a little picture, a small square with a border
of lace paper, on which there was a snow-white lamb holding a pink
flag. Under it stood in golden letters, "Agnus Dei, miserere
nobis."

Where could he have got that from? Never mind from where, he had
wanted to give her something. And the small tasteless picture touched
her deeply. The good boy.

She put the picture with the lamb of God carefully among her
treasures; it should always remain there. A tender longing came over
her for the boy, and she could not imagine how she had been able to
stand it so long without him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

August was over and September already almost half gone when Kate
returned home. Her husband, who had returned before her, came to meet
her; they met in Dresden, and their meeting was a very cordial one.
He could never get tired of looking at her bright colour, her bright
eyes; and she on her sid