al gold one for his
confirmation, which he would then wear every day--that had vexed them
awfully.

It was before the lesson had commenced--they were all three
waiting--and Kesselborn had suddenly said: "Schlieben gives himself
airs," and had then turned to him and said: "You needn't be so
stuck-up." And then Lehmann had added, also quite loudly so that
everybody must have heard it: "Don't put on so much side, we know all
about it."

"What do you know?" He had wanted to jump on Lehmann like a tiger,
but the clergyman had just then come in and they began prayers. And
when the lesson, of which he had hardly heard anything--he heard the
other words all the time--was over, he had wanted to tackle
Kesselborn and Lehmann, but they had been sitting near the door, and
had already gone before he could get out of his bench. He did not see
them again. But he noticed glances in which there was a certain
curiosity and spitefulness--or did he only imagine it? He was not quite
sure about it, and he had not thought any more about it either. But now
when he saw his mother's face so close to his in the glass, he suddenly
remembered it all again. And it all came back to him, plumped like a
stone into his thoughts.

"I'm not at all like you," he said once more. And then he watched
her face: "Not like father either."

"Oh yes," she said hastily, "you are very much like your
father."

"Not the slightest bit."

Her face had flamed, and then he noticed that she suddenly turned
pale. Then she laughed, but there was something forced in her laugh.
"There are many children who hardly resemble their parents at all--that
has nothing to do with the matter."

"No, but----" All at once he stopped and frowned, as he always did
when he exerted himself to think. And he shot such sharp, such
suspicious, such scrutinising glances at the glass under his knit brows
that Kate involuntarily moved aside, so that her head could not be seen
near his in the glass any more.

She was seized with a sudden fear: what did he mean? Had he spoken
like that intentionally, or had he said it quite unconsciously? What
had they said to him? What did he know?

Her hands that had found something to do to his clothes--she was on
her knees pulling down his trousers--were full of nervous haste, and
were pulling here, pulling there, and trembling.

He was not looking into the glass now, he was gazing at the kneeling
woman with an indefinable look. As a rule, his face