“Why, nothing,” answered Mrs. Gerhardt, in the same language. She was decidedly taken aback at his question. “He did call two or three times.” “You didn’t tell me that,” he returned, a sense of her frailty in tolerating and shielding such weakness in one of their children irritating him. “No,” she replied, absolutely nonplussed. “He has only been here two or three times.” “Two or three times!” exclaimed Gerhardt, the German tendency to talk loud coming upon him. “Two or three times! The whole neighborhood talks about it. What is this, then?” “He only called two or three times,” Mrs. Gerhardt repeated weakly. “Weaver comes to me on the street,” continued Gerhardt, “and tells me that my neighbors are talking of the man my daughter is going with. I didn’t know anything about it. There I stood. I didn’t know what to say. What kind of a way is that? What must the man think of me?” “There is nothing the matter,” declared the mother, using an effective German idiom. “Jennie has gone walking with him once or twice. He has called here at the house. What is there now in that for the people to talk about? Can’t the girl have any pleasure at all?” “But he is an old man,” returned Gerhardt, voicing the words of Weaver. “He is a public citizen. What should he want to call on a girl like Jennie for?” “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, defensively. “He comes here to the house. I don’t know anything but good about the man. Can I tell him not to come?” Gerhardt paused at this. All that he knew of the Senator was excellent. What was there now that was so terrible about it? “The neighbors are so ready to talk. They haven’t got anything else to talk about now, so they talk about Jennie. You know whether she is a good girl or not. Why should they say such things?” and tears came into the soft little mother’s eyes. “That is all right,” grumbled Gerhardt, “but he ought not to want to come around and take a girl of her age out walking. It looks bad, even if he don’t mean any harm.” At this moment Jennie came in. She had heard the talking in the front bedroom, where she slept with one of the children, but had not suspected its import. Now her mother turned her back and bent over the table where she was making biscuit, in order that her daughter might not see her red eyes. “What’s the matter?” she inquired, vaguely troubled by the tense stillness in the attitude of both her parents. “Nothing,” said Gerhardt firmly. Mrs. Gerhardt made no sign, but her very immobility told something. Jennie went over to her and quickly discovered that she had been weeping. “What’s the matter?” she repeated wonderingly, gazing at her father. Gerhardt only stood there, his daughter’s innocence dominating his terror of evil. “What’s the matter?” she urged softly of her mother. “Oh, it’s the neighbors,” returned the mother brokenly. “They’re always ready to talk about something they don’t know anything about.”