Then he walked out of the room with heavy steps, and ordered the trap to be got ready, in order to set off on his usual pilgrimage. When he came back, and had slept off his intoxication, he said: “There, now my last hope is gone. The d--d Jew, who wanted to advance the money at twenty-five per cent., declares he will have nothing more to do with me. Well, let him do the other thing. I don’t care a straw for him. And at Michaelmas we may really go a-begging, for this time nothing remains to us but what we stand up in. But this I tell you: this time I shall not survive the blow. An honorable man must set some value on himself, and if one fine morning you see me swinging from the rafters, don’t be astonished.” The mother uttered a piercing cry, and clung with both arms round his neck. “Well, well, well!” he calmed her; “it was not meant so seriously. You women-folk are all the same deplorable creatures, a mere word upsets you.” The mother started and stepped back from him, but when he had gone out she seated herself at the window, and looked after him anxiously, as if she feared he might already be thinking of doing himself a mischief. From time to time a shudder ran through her frame, as if she were cold. In the following night, Paul, waking, observed that she got up, put on a petticoat, and went to the window from which the White House could be seen. It was bright moonlight--perhaps she really gazed at it. For wellnigh two hours she sat there, looking out fixedly. Paul did not stir, and when, with the approach of dawn, she came back from the window and stepped to her children’s bedsides, he closed his eyes firmly and feigned to sleep. She first kissed the twins, who were sleeping with their arms entwined; then she came to him, and as she bent down over him he heard her whisper, “God give me strength. It must be.” Then he guessed that something extraordinary was in preparation. When, the following afternoon, he came home from school, he saw his mother sitting in the arbor in her hat and cloak and Sunday clothes; her cheeks were paler than usual; her hands, which lay in her lap, trembled. She seemed to have been waiting for him, for when she saw him she breathed more freely. “Are you going out, mamma?” he asked, wonderingly. “Yes, my boy,” she answered, “and you shall go with me.” “To the village, mamma?” “No, my boy”--her voice quivered--“not to the village. You must put on your Sunday clothes; the velvet coat, of course, is spoiled, but I have taken the stains out of your gray jacket--it will still do; and you must polish your boots quickly.” “Where are we going, then, mamma?” Then she laid her arms round him, and said, softly, “To the White House.” He felt a sudden fever of excitement. The exultant joy which welled up from his heart nearly choked him; he jumped on his mother’s lap and kissed her impetuously. “But you must tell nobody,” she whispered--“nobody; do you understand?”