[_Somewhat deep and mannish in tone._] It is Mrs. Hassenreuter. MRS. JOHN [_Surprised._] Goodness gracious! [_She opens the door._] I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hassenreuter! I didn't even know who it was! _MRS. HASSENREUTER has now entered, followed by WALBURGA. She is a colossal, asthmatic lady aver fifty. WALBURGA is dressed with greater simplicity than in the first act. She carries a rather large package._ MRS. HASSENREUTER How do you do, Mrs. John? Although climbing stairs is ... very hard for me ... I wanted to see how everything ... goes with you after the ... yes, the very happy event. MRS. JOHN I'm gettin' along again kind o' half way. MRS. HASSENREUTER That is probably your husband, Mrs. John? Well, one must say, one is bound to say, that your dear wife, in the long time of waiting--never complained, was always cheery and merry, and did her work well for my husband upstairs. JOHN That's right. She was mighty glad, too. MRS. HASSENREUTER Well, then we'll have the pleasure--at least, your wife will have the pleasure of seeing you at home oftener than heretofore. MRS. JOHN I has a good husband, Mrs. Hassenreuter, who takes care o' me an' has good habits. An' because Paul was workin' out o town you musn't think there was any danger o' his leavin' me. But a man like that, where his brother has a boy o' twelve in the non-commissioned officers' school ... it's no kind o' life for him havin' no children o' his own. He gets to thinkin' queer thoughts. There he is in Hamburg, makin' good money, an' he has the chance every day and--well--then he takes a notion, maybe, he'd like to go to America. JOHN Oh, that was never more'n a thought. MRS. JOHN Well, you see, with us poor people ... it's hard-earned bread that we eats ... an' yet ... [_lightly she runs her hand through JOHN'S hair_] even if there's one more an' you has more cares on that account--you see how the tears is runnin' down his cheeks--well, he's mighty happy anyhow! JOHN That's because three years ago we had a little feller an' when he was a week old he took sick an' died. MRS. HASSENREUTER My husband has already ... yes, my husband did tell me about that ... how deeply you grieved over that little son of yours. You know how it is ... you know how my good husband has his eyes and his heart open to everything. And if it's a question of people who are about him or who give him their services--then everything good or bad, yes, everything good or bad that happens to them, seems just as though it had happened to himself. MRS. JOHN I mind as if it was this day how he sat in the carridge that time with the little child's coffin on his knees. He wouldn't let the gravedigger so much as touch it. JOHN [_Wiping the moisture out of his eyes._] That's the way it was. No. I couldn't let him do that. MRS. HASSENREUTER