His wife, having bestowed upon him one brief glance, quickly arose and went into the house: the next moment she came again, bringing with her a pitcher of iced water and a goblet, which she placed before him on a small rustic table. But a second glance showed her that he was suffering from something besides the heat and fatigue. There was a look on his broad honest face that told as distinctly as color and expression could tell of anguish, consternation, remorse. He drank from the goblet she had filled for him, and said, without looking at his wife, "I have brought you the worst news, Anna, that ever you heard." She must have guessed what it was instantly, but she made neither sign nor gesture. She could have enumerated there and then all the sorrows of her life; but for a moment it was not possible even for her to say that this impending affliction was, in view of all she had endured, a light one, easy to be borne. "It has gone against us," said Mr. Loretz, picking up his red silk handkerchief and passing it from one hand to another, and finally hiding his face within its ample dimensions for a moment. "Do you mean the lot?" Her voice wavered a little. Though she asked or refrained from asking, something had taken place which must be made known speedily. Wherefore, then, delay the evil knowledge? He signified by a nod that it was so. "And that is in store for our poor child!" said the mother. Mr. Loretz was now quite broken down. He passed his handkerchief across his face again, and this time made no answer. Then the mother, with lips firmly compressed, and eyes bent steadily upon the floor, and forehead crumpled somewhat, sat and held her peace. At last the father said, in a low tone that gave to his strong voice an awful pathos, "How can the child bear it, Anna? for she loves Spener well--and to love _him_ well!" "Oh, father," said the wife, who had by this time sounded the depth of this tribulation, and was already ascending, "how did we bear it when we had to give up Gabriel, and Jacob, and dear little Carl?" "For me," said the man, rising and looking over the piazza rail into the gay little flower-garden beneath--"for me all that was nothing to this." "O my boys!" the mother cried. "We know that they went home to a heavenly Parent, and to more delight and honor than all the earth could give them," the father said. "It rent the heart, Frederick, but into the gaping wound the balm of Gilead was poured." "There is no man alive to be compared with Albert Spener." "I know of one--but one." "Not one," he said with an emphasis which sternly rebuked the ill-timed, and, as he deemed, untruthful flattery. "There is not his like, go where you will." "Ah, how you have exalted him above all that is to be worshiped!" sighed the good woman, putting her hands together, and really as troubled and sympathetic, and cool and calculating, as she seemed to be.