[_Fiercely._] First of all, I'm no young woman but a girl. FABIG [_With cunning._] Maybe so. But from all I hears you'll be married soon. HANNE That's nothin' but a pack o' mean lies--that's what it is. FABIG Well, that's what I heard. It's no fault o' mine. People is sayin' it all over; because Mrs. Henschel died ... HANNE Well, they can talk for all I care. I does my work. That's all that concerns me. FABIG That's the best way. I does that way myself. There's little that folks hasn't said about me some time ... In Altwasser they says I steals pigeons. A little dog ran after me ... o' course, they said I stole it. HANNE Well now, if you got anythin' to say to me, go ahead an' don't waste words. FABIG Now you see, there you are. That's what I always says too. People talks a good deal more'n they ought to. They has a few rags to sell an' they talks an' talks as if it was an estate. But I'll say just as little as possible. What I wants to tell you about, young woman--now don't fly up: the word just slipped out!--I meant to say: lass--what I wants to tell you about is your daughter. HANNE [_Violently._] I has no daughter, if you want to know it. The girl that father is takin' care of, is my sister's child. FABIG Well now, that's different, that is. We've all been thinkin' the girl was yours. Where is your sister? HANNE Who knows where she is? She's not fool enough to tell us. She thinks, thinks she: they c'n have the trouble an' see how they gets along. FABIG Well, well, well! There you see again how folks is mistaken. I'd ha' taken any oath ... an' not me, not me alone, but all the folks over in Quolsdorf, that you was the mother o' that child. HANNE Yes, I knows right well who says that o' me. I could call 'em all by name! They'd all like to make a common wench o' me. But if ever I lays my hands on 'em I'll give 'em somethin' to remember me by. FABIG Well, it's a bad business--all of it! Because this is the way it is: the old man, your father, I needn't be tellin' you--things is as they is--he don't hardly get sober. He just drinks in one streak. Well, now that your mother's been dead these two years, he can't leave the little thing--the girl I mean--at home no more. The bit o' house is empty. An' so he drags her around in the pubs, in all kinds o' holes, from one village taproom to the next. If you sees that--it's enough to stir a dumb beast with pity. HANNE [_With fierce impatience._] Is it my fault that he swills? FABIG By no means an' not at all. Nobody c'n keep your old man from doin' his way! 'Tis only on account o' the child, an' it's that makes a body feel sorry. But if that there little one can't be taken away from him an' given in the care o' decent folks, she won't live no ten weeks after this. HANNE [_Hardening herself._] That don't concern me. I can't take her. I got all I can do to get along! FABIG