Her eyes turned upon him as if she did not quite understand that; then she buried her strikingly small head in the wide folds of her father's coat. "Why are you hiding, Wienke?" he whispered to her; "are you afraid?" And a trembling little voice rose out of the folds of the coat: "Wienke would rather not look; but you can do everything, can't you, father?" Distant thunder was rolling against the wind. "Hoho!" cried Hauke, "there it comes!" And he turned his horse round to ride back. "Now we want to go home to mother!" The child drew a deep breath; but not until they had reached the hill and the house did she raise her little head from her father's breast. When Elke had taken off the little shawl and cap in the room, the child remained standing before her mother like a dumb little ninepin. "Well, Wienke," she said, and shook her gently, "do you like the big water?" But the child opened her eyes wide. "It talks," she said. "Wienke is afraid!" "It doesn't talk; it only murmurs and roars!" The child looked into the void: "Has it got legs?" she asked again; "can it come over the dike?" "No, Wienke; your father looks out for that, he is the dikemaster." "Yes," said the child and clapped her little hands together with an idiotic smile. "Father can do everything--everything!" Then suddenly, turning away from her mother, she cried: "Let Wienke go to Trin Jans, she has red apples!" And Elke opened the door and let the child out. When she had closed it again, she glanced at her husband with the deepest anguish in her eyes from which hitherto he had drawn only comfort and courage that had helped him. He gave her his hand and pressed hers, as if there were no further need for words between them; then she said in a low voice: "No, Hauke, let me speak: the child that I have borne you after years will stay a child always. Oh, good God! It is feeble-minded! I have to say it once in your hearing." "I knew it long ago," said Hauke and held tightly his wife's hand which she wanted to draw away. "So we are left alone after all," she said again. But Hauke shook his head: "I love her, and she throws her little arms round me and presses close to my breast; for all the treasures of the world I wouldn't miss that!" The woman stared ahead darkly: "But why?" she asked; "what have I, poor mother, done?" "Yes, Elke, that I have asked, too, of Him who alone can know; but you know, too, that the Almighty gives men no answer--perhaps because we would not grasp it." He had seized his wife's other hand too, and gently drew her toward him. "Don't let yourself be kept from loving your child as you do; be sure it understands that." Then Elke threw herself on her husband's breast and cried to her heart's content and was no longer alone with her grief. Then suddenly she smiled at him; after pressing his hand passionately, she ran out and got her child from old Trin Jans' room, took it on her lap and caressed and kissed it, until it stammered: