o chits like you know about such things?
Wolfgang's father knows very well what the boy is to him and where he
got him from. And if the lady is satisfied with it, no one else has a
word to say about it."

Wolfgang stared at the gossip. "The boys say--Lisbeth said--and now
you say--you too"--he jumped up--"I'll go and ask--them." He pointed
with his finger as though pointing at something at a great distance of
which he knew nothing. "Now I must know it."

"But Wolfgang--no, for God's sake!" Frau Laemke pressed him down into
the chair again, quite terrified. "Laemke will beat me if he gets to
know what I've done. He may possibly lose his situation as porter
because of it--now, straightway, and the children don't earn anything
as yet. I've not said anything, have I? How can I help that other
people make you suspicious and uneasy? I don't know your mother at all
and your father will, of course, have lost sight of her long ago. Let
the whole thing lie, my boy." She wanted to soothe him, but he was not
listening.

"My--my father?" he stammered. "So he is my real father?"

Frau Laemke nodded.

"But my--my real m--" He could not say the word "mother." He held
his hands before his face and his whole body quivered. He was suddenly
seized with a longing, that great passionate longing, for a mother who
had borne him. He did not say a word, but he uttered sighs that sounded
like groans.

Frau Laemke was frightened to death; she wanted to clear herself but
made it much worse. "Tut, tut, my dear boy, such a thing often happens
in life--very decent of him that he doesn't disown you; there are heaps
who do. And you would have far to go to find anybody like the lady who
has adopted you as her own child. Splendid--simply splendid!" Frau
Laemke had often been vexed with the fine lady, but now she felt she
wanted to do her justice. "Such a mother ought to be set in gold--there
isn't such another to be found." She exhausted herself in praise. "And
who knows if it's true after all?" And with that she concluded.

Oh, it was all true. Wolfgang had grown quiet--at least his face no
longer showed any special emotion when he let his hands fall. "I shall
have to be going now," he said.

Frida stood there looking very distressed. She had known it all a
long time--who did not know it?--but she was very sorry indeed that
_he_ knew it now. Her clear eyes grew dim, and she looked at her friend
full of compassion. Oh, how much more beautiful he