"Why does not Carlen help you, muetter?" he exclaimed hastily. "What is shedoing there, idling with Wilhelm in the stoop?"

Frau Weitbreck chuckled. "It is not alvays to vork, ven one is young," shesaid. "I haf not forget!" And she nodded her head meaningly.

John clenched his arms. Where had he been? Who had blinded him? How hadall this come about, so soon and without his knowledge? Were his fatherand his mother mad? He thought they must be.

"It is a shame for that Wilhelm to so much as put his eyes on Carlen'sface," he cried. "I think we are fools; what know we about him? I doubthim in and out. I wish he had never darkened our doors."

Frau Weitbreck glanced cautiously at the open door. She was frying sweetcakes in the boiling lard. Forgetting everything inside her fear of beingoverheard, she went softly, with the dripping skimmer inside her hand,across the kitchen, the fat falling on her shining floor at every step,and closed the door. Then she came close to her son, and exclaimed in awhisper, "The fader skinnyk it is goot." At Harold's mad exclamation sheraised her hand in warning.