Poor little Gretel! Her home was sad and dark enough now. Raff Brinker lay moaning upon his rough bed, and his vrouw, forgetting and forgiving everything, bathed his forehead, his lips, weeping and praying that he might not die. Hans, as we know, had started in desperation for Leyden to search for Dr. Boekman and induce him, if possible, to come to their father at once. Gretel, filled with a strange dread, had done the work as well as she could, wiped the rough brick floor, brought peat to build up the slow fire, and melted ice for her mother’s use. This accomplished, she seated herself upon a low stool near the bed and begged her mother to try to sleep awhile. “You are so tired,” she whispered. “Not once have you closed your eyes since that dreadful hour last night. See, I have straightened the willow bed in the corner, and spread everything soft upon it I could find, so that the mother might lie in comfort. Here is your jacket. Take off that pretty dress. I’ll fold it away very carefully and put it in the big chest before you go to sleep.” Dame Brinker shook her head without turning her eyes from her husband’s face. “I can watch, mother,” urged Gretel, “and I’ll wake you every time the father stirs. You are so pale, and your eyes are so red! Oh, mother, DO!” The child pleaded in vain. Dame Brinker would not leave her post. Gretel looked at her in troubled silence, wondering whether it were very wicked to care more for one parent than for the other, and sure--yes, quite sure--that she dreaded her father while she clung to her mother with a love that was almost idolatry. Hans loves the father so well, she thought, why cannot I? Yet I could not help crying when I saw his hand bleed that day, last month, when he snatched the knife--and now, when he moans, how I ache, ache all over. Perhaps I love him, after all, and God will see that I am not such a bad, wicked girl as I thought. Yes, I love the poor father--almost as Hans does--not quite, for Hans is stronger and does not fear him. Oh, will that moaning go on forever and ever! Poor mother, how patient she is; SHE never pouts, as I do, about the money that went away so strangely. If he only could, for one instant, open his eyes and look at us, as Hans does, and tell us where mother’s guilders went, I would not care for the rest. Yes, I would care; I don’t want the poor father to die, to be all blue and cold like Annie Bouman’s little sister. I KNOW I don’t. Dear God, I don’t want Father to die.