Mina therefore asked with great simplicity: "Do you play with a ball when you are dancing?"--This question showed what a stupid innocent little thing Mina was, but as she was the youngest and most inexperienced of the party, it was unkind of the Miss Pomuchelskopps to laugh at her as they did. "Well!" said Rosalia, "that is really too silly!"--"Dear me, how very countrified!" said Mally, drawing herself up, and putting on the high and mighty manner of a town-lady, and looking as if she wished it to be supposed that she had been accustomed to see Rostock cathedral out of her nursery-window from the time of her babyhood, and as if she and his worship, the mayor, had been old play-fellows.--Our poor little Mina blushed as red as a peony, for she felt that she must have said something very foolish indeed, and Louisa reddened with anger, for she could not bear to hear any one laughed at. She did not mind it so much for herself, but when one of her friends, any one whom she loved was treated so, it made her tingle all over.--"Why are you laughing?" she asked quickly. "What is there to laugh at in our not knowing what a ball is?"--"Look, look! What a rage she's in!" laughed Mally.--"Dear child ....." she could not finish her sentence, for Mr. Pomuchelskopp just then said excitedly: "I think it is very wrong, Mrs. Behrens. I am the squire of Gürlitz, and if your husband wanted to let the glebe....."--"My pastor has let it, and Mr. von Rambow is an old friend of ours, and his estate, which marches as well with our land as Gürlitz does, is also in this parish, and then Hawermann, his farm-bailiff ....."--"Is a cunning rascal," interrupted Pomuchelskopp.--"Who has cheated us once already," added his wife.--"What?" cried little Mrs. Behrens. "What?" She then stopped short, for she remembered that Louisa was present, and she was afraid of the child hearing and being hurt by what was said, so she contented herself with making signs to her visitors to change the subject. But it was too late. Louisa had heard, and was now standing before the surly looking man and his cold-hearted wife: "_What_ did you call my father? _What_ has he done?" And the gentle little creature who until that moment had lived in peace with all men, was filled with burning wrath against her father's slanderers, and her eyes flashed as she looked at them.--It is said that the beautiful green earth will one day burst out in fire and flame, and bury the work of men's hands and the temple of God in ashes.--It was much the same with the child, a temple of the living God that she had loved and reverenced was threatened with destruction, and her sorrow found relief in an agony of tears as her good foster-mother put her arm round her, and led her from the room.