Her thoughts merged into a prayer. When it ended the poor child scarcely knew. Soon she found herself watching a little pulse of light at the side of the fire, beating faintly but steadily, showing that somewhere in the dark pile there was warmth and light that would overspread it at last. A large earthen cup filled with burning peat stood near the bedside; Gretel had placed it there to “stop the father’s shivering,” she said. She watched it as it sent a glow around the mother’s form, tipping her faded skirt with light and shedding a sort of newness over the threadbare bodice. It was a relief to Gretel to see the lines in that weary face soften as the firelight flickered gently across it. Next she counted the windowpanes, broken and patched as they were, and finally, after tracing every crack and seam in the walls, fixed her gaze upon a carved shelf made by Hans. The shelf hung as high as Gretel could reach. It held a large leather-covered Bible with brass clasps, a wedding present to Dame Brinker from the family at Heidelberg. Ah, how handy Hans is! If he were here, he could turn the father some way so the moans would stop. Dear, dear! If this sickness lasts, we shall never skate anymore. I must send my new skates back to the beautiful lady. Hans and I will not see the race. And Gretel’s eyes, that had been dry before, grew full of tears. “Never cry, child,” said her mother soothingly. “This sickness may not be as bad as we think. The father has lain this way before.” Gretel sobbed now. “Oh, mother, it is not that alone--you do not know all. I am very, very bad and wicked!” “YOU, Gretel! you so patient and good!” and a bright, puzzled look beamed for an instant upon the child. “Hush, lovey, you’ll wake him.” Gretel hid her face in her mother’s lap and tried not to cry. Her little hand, so thin and brown, lay in the coarse palm of her mother’s, creased with many a hard day’s work. Rychie would have shuddered to touch either, yet they pressed warmly upon each other. Soon Gretel looked up with that dull, homely look which, they say, poor children in shanties are apt to have, and said in a trembling voice, “The father tried to burn you--he did--I saw him, and he was LAUGHING!” “Hush, child!” The mother’s words came so suddenly and sharply that Raff Brinker, dead as he was to all that was passing around him, twitched slightly upon the bed. Gretel said no more but plucked drearily at the jagged edge of a hole in her mother’s holiday gown. It had been burned there. Well for Dame Brinker that the gown was woolen. Haarlem--The Boys Hear Voices Refreshed and rested, our boys came forth from the coffeehouse just as the big clock in the square, after the manner of certain Holland timekeepers, was striking two with its half-hour bell for half-past two.