“You poor fellow!” said Frau Kellar, “though begging your pardon for the word, Herr Pastor. _Gott!_ but you must have the patience of Job!” “Oh, no,” said the pastor. “They are good children, all. It is not their fault if they are young and little; but of course it is hard for a man,” he added wearily. “I should say so!” cried Frau Kellar; “but now here is my niece Lottie, who will stay to-day, and to-morrow for that matter, and help you.” “She is very good,” said the pastor, looking up admiringly at Lottie, a tall, florid, good-natured-looking girl, who had already caught up the baby, and hushed its wailing on her substantial shoulder. “Let Gretchen and the boys go and play with my children,” said Frau Kellar. “Lottie can look after these two, and see to your dinner, and you come into your study with me. There is something I must say to you.” The pastor meekly obeyed. He was tired out, poor man, mind and body, and disinclined to assert himself; yet he was scarcely prepared for the decided tone of Frau Kellar’s first remark. “You need a wife, Herr Pastor; you must marry. This state of affairs cannot go on.” “But I wish to marry,” said the pastor seriously. Frau Kellar hesitated a moment; there are limits to every woman’s frankness, thank Heaven! especially when she is talking to her pastor. Then she said,— “Of course you know that Karl Metzerott and Dora Weglein are betrothed?” The pastor, still in his blue apron, sat somewhat uneasily upon a chair much too high for his short legs. A sufficiently grotesque figure, one would have said, even if his hair had not been so very rumpled, and the hands upon his thin, aproned knees so very grimy; yet, as he straightened his meagre figure and looked Frau Kellar full in the face, there was an unselfish distress upon his ugly little face that dignified his whole personality. “That man!” he said, “that infidel, that free-thinker!” “Well, one knew it was sure to happen,” replied Frau Kellar, with a shrug of her ample shoulders; “he has been her shadow ever since the Kaffee-Visite.” “I tried to hinder it,” said the pastor boldly. “Fräulein Dora is good and pious, and she has no right to marry an atheist. But she only grew angry with me,” he added sadly. “Of course,” answered Frau Kellar with a laugh, “folks who meddle with mating birds must expect a peck or two. Well, I have no fault to find with Karl, for my part. He is as steady as a rock, and if he chooses to think for himself, it’s no more than every one does nowadays. After all, too little religion is better than too much beer,” she added sagely. The pastor shook his head. “That may follow,” he said. “Hardly,” she replied; then, with an access of boldness, “but if she had listened to my advice, Herr Pastor, she would have taken you.” The pastor did not resent her freedom of speech. “She is very beautiful,” he said sadly, “and who would marry a man with six children, if she could do better?”