I don't know what to say. I want to take special care of you just now, child. Other girls are hardy and plump at your age. You are the contrary.----Who knows what you will be when the others have developed? WENDLA. Who knows--possibly I shall not be at all. FRAU BERGMANN. Child, child, how do such thoughts come to you! WENDLA. Don't, dear Mother, don't be sad. FRAU BERGMANN. (_Kissing her._) My own darling! WENDLA. They come to me at night when I can't sleep. I am not made sad by them, and I believe that I sleep better after them. Is it sinful, Mother, to have such thoughts? FRAU BERGMANN. Go hang the long dress up in the closet. Put on your short dress again, in God's name!--I will put another depth of ruffles on it. WENDLA. (_Hanging the dress in the closet._) No, I would rather be twenty at once----! FRAU BERGMANN. If only you are not too cold!----The dress was long enough for you in its time, but---- WENDLA. Now, when summer is coming?----Mother, when one is a child, one doesn't catch diphtheria in one's knees! Who would be so cowardly. At my age one doesn't freeze--least of all in the legs. Would it be any better for me to be too warm, Mother? Give thanks to God if some day your darling doesn't tear out the sleeves and come to you at twilight without her shoes and stockings!--If I wore my long dress I should dress like an elfin queen under it.--Don't scold, Mother! Nobody sees it any more. SCENE SECOND. _Sunday Evening._ MELCHIOR. This is too tiresome for me. I won't do anything more with it. OTTO. Then we others can stop, too!----Have you the work, Melchior? MELCHIOR. Keep right on playing! MORITZ. Where are you going? MELCHIOR. For a walk. GEORGE. But it's growing dark! ROBERT. Have you the work already? MELCHIOR. Why shouldn't I go walking in the dark? ERNEST. Central America!----Louis the Fifteenth!----Sixty verses of Homer!----Seven equations! MELCHIOR. Damn the work! GEORGE. If only Latin composition didn't come to-morrow! MORITZ. One can't think of anything without a task intervening. OTTO. I'm going home. GEORGE. I, too, to work. ERNEST. I, too, I too. ROBERT. Good-night, Melchior. MELCHIOR. Sleep well! (_All withdraw save Moritz and Melchior._) I'd like to know why we really are on earth! MORITZ. I'd rather be a cab-horse than go to school!----Why do we go to school?----We go to school so that somebody can examine us!----And why do they examine us?----In order that we may fail. Seven must fail, because the upper classroom will hold only sixty.----I feel so queer since Christmas.----The devil take me, if it were not for Papa, I'd pack my bundle and go to Altoona to-day! MELCHIOR. Let's talk of something else---- (_They go for a walk._) MORITZ.