Ingeborg clung to Ilse's arm bewildered. After Kökensee alone in its fields, after the dignified tranquillities of Redchester, the noise hammered on her head like showers of blows. There were not many people about, but those there were stared to the extent of stopping dead in front of the two women in order not to miss anything. It was at Ingeborg they stared. Ilse was a familiar figure, just a sunburnt country girl with oiled hair, in her Sunday clothes; but Ingeborg was a foreigner, an astonishment. Men and women stopped, children loitered, half-grown youths whistled and called out comments that her slow German could not follow. She flushed and turned pale, and held on tighter to Ilse. She supposed she must be looking more grotesque even than she had feared. She put it all down to her condition, not knowing on this her first walk in a German provincial town that it was her being a stranger, dressed a little differently, doing her hair a little differently, that caused the interest. She walked as quickly as she could to get away from these people into a shop, little beads of effort round her mouth, looking straight before her, fighting down a dreadful desire to cry; and it was with thankfulness that she sank on to a chair in the quiet midday emptiness of Berding and Kühn's drapery and linen establishment. The young lady behind the counter stared, too, but then there was only one of her. She very politely called Ingeborg _gnädiges Fräulein_ and inquired whether her child was a boy or a girl. "Lord God!" cried Ilse, "how should we know?" But Ingeborg, with dignity and decision, said it was a boy. "Then," said the young lady, "you require blue ribbons." "Do I?" said Ingeborg, very willing to believe her. The young lady sorted out small garments from green calico boxes labelled _For Firsts_. There were little jackets, little shirts, little caps, everything one could need for the upper portion of a baby. "So," said the young lady, pushing a pile of these articles across the counter to Ingeborg. "God, God!" cried Ilse in an ecstasy at such tininess, thrusting her red thumb through one of the diminutive sleeves and holding it up to show how tightly it fitted. "_Nicht wahr_?" agreed the young lady, though without excitement. "But," said Ingeborg, laboriously searching out her words, "the baby doesn't leave off there, at its middle. It'll go on. It'll be a whole baby. It'll have legs and things. What does one put on the rest of it?" The young lady looked at Ilse for enlightenment. "It'll _have_ a rest, Ilse," said Ingeborg, also appealing to her. "These things are just clothes for cherubs." "_Ach so_," said the young lady, visited by a glimmer of understanding, and turning round she dexterously whipped down more green boxes, and taking off the lids brought out squares of different materials, linen, flannel, and a soft white spongy stuff. "Swaddle," she said, holding them up. "Swaddle?" said Ingeborg. "Swaddle," confirmed Ilse.