s parents were still sitting at the table--both were reading--but
the table was empty.

"Good evening," said the boy, "is the table cleared already?" You
could plainly hear the surprise in his voice.

"So there you are!" His father nodded to him but did not look up; he
seemed to be quite taken up with his reading. And his mother said: "Are
you going to sit with us a little?"

All at once the lad shivered. It had been so nice and warm outside,
here it was cool.

And then everything was quiet for a while, until Friedrich came in
with a tray on which there was only a little cold meat, bread, butter
and cheese beside the knife and fork. It struck Wolfgang how loudly he
rattled the things; the housemaid generally waited. "Where's
Marie?"

"In bed," said his mother curtly.

"Already?" Wolfgang wondered why to himself. Hark, the clock in his
mother's room was just striking--eleven? Was it actually already eleven
o'clock? They would really have to be quick and get him something to
eat, he was dying for want of food. He fixed his eyes on the door
through which Friedrich had disappeared. Was something soon coming?

He waited.

"Eat something." His mother pushed the dish with cold meat nearer to
him.

"Why don't you eat?" asked his father suddenly.

"Oh, I am still waiting."

"There's nothing more," said his mother, and her face, which looked
so extremely weary like the face of one who has waited long in vain,
flushed slightly.

"Nothing else?--nothing more?--why?" The boy looked exceedingly
disappointed. He glanced from his mother to the table, then to
the sideboard and then round the room as though searching for
something.

"Haven't you had anything else to eat?"

"Yes, we have had something else--but if you don't come--" His
father knit his brows, and then he looked straight at his son for the
first time that evening, surveying him with a grave glance. "You can't
possibly expect to find a warm supper, when you come home so
unpunctually."

"But you--you are not obliged to"--the young man swallowed the
rest--he would have much preferred it had his parents not sat there
waiting for him; the servants would have done what was expected of
them.

"Perhaps you think the servants don't require their night's rest?"
said his father, as though he had guessed his thought. "The maids, who
have been in the kitchen the whole day, want to have done in the
evening as well as other people. So you must come earlier if you w