"I know of no one yet but Proebler, whose ingenious inventions have certainly earned him a place." "Ha, ha! that is too good; you and Proebler! You are capital yokefellows. Did I not always tell you you would come down to his level? But you are more pitiful than he, for he at least has not dragged down a wife and children. Out of my sight, you poor, miserable milksop! Let yourself be yoked to the same team with Proebler!" She snatched the child from its father's knee and, turning the torrent of her words upon the terrified boy, continued, passionately: "Your father is a pitiful milksop, who needs to have the bottle always held to his lips. Pity his mother is not alive to make his pap for him! Oh, how low have I fallen! But one thing I insist upon, you shall not enter the factory; I will drown myself and my children first. When I am dead you can go and ask the doctor's crooked daughter to leave her weeds and marry you." Lenz sat motionless, chilled with horror. "Mention not my mother's name," he cried at last. "Leave her to her eternal rest." "I have no objection to leaving her. I neither want nor have anything of hers." "What? Have you no longer that sprig of edelweiss? Tell me, have you not kept it?" "Stuff and nonsense! of course I have kept it." "Where? Give it to me!" Annele opened a drawer and showed it. "Thank God! you have it still; it will still bring us its blessing." "The man has actually lost his senses with his superstition. The idea of pinning his faith to a wretched bit of dried grass instead of trying to help himself! Just like these beggars to go tearing about the world distracted." Annele poured forth all this venom with her back upon her husband, as if calling the world to witness his degradation. Her utter ignoring of his presence, and thus speaking of him in the third person, was a keener stab than even her cruel epithets. With great self-control he said: "Do not speak so, Annele; it is not yourself, but a devil speaking in you. And do not crush the little flower; keep it sacred." "Ha, ha!" laughed Annele. "That is too much. I won't give way to such miserable superstition. Out of the window, Edelweiss, and take this precious bit of writing with you." A tempest of wind was raging without. "Come, Wind," she cried, as she threw open the window; "come, take all this sacred trumpery." She let go flower and letter. The wind whistled and howled, and whirled them high in the air over the bald mountain-top. "What have you done, Annele?" groaned Lenz. "I am not superstitious like you, nor am I yet fallen so low as to make an idol of such trash." "It is no superstition. My mother only meant that so long as my wife honored the memory of my parents, a blessing would rest upon the house. But nothing is sacred to you." "I do not hold you sacred, nor your mother either."