What was she waiting for? Seven o'clock struck, and still she waited. The clock in the room ticked through the minutes, and every half hour they could hear the church clock striking. Ingeborg brought her a footstool; brought her a cushion; brought her, in extremity, a glass of water; began to sew at a torn duster; left off sewing at it; fluttered nervously among the pages of her grammar; pored in her dictionary; and always Frau Dremmel watched her. She found herself struggling against a tendency to think of her mother-in-law as It. At seven she heard Ilse go home singing--happy Ilse, able to go away. Soon afterwards she finally faltered into immobility, giving up, sitting now quite still herself in her chair, the flush faded from her cheek, pale and crumpled. It was her and Robert's supper-time. Soon it would be their bedtime. Quite soon it would be to-morrow. And then it would be next week. And then there would be winter coming on.... Was this visit never to end? At eight it at last became plain to her that what Frau Dremmel was waiting for must be supper. This was terrible, for there was none. At least, there was only that repetition of tea and breakfast that made her and Robert's lives so wholesome. She had calculated the visit on the basis of tea only, and had prepared only and elaborately for that. For half an hour she sat on and hoped she was mistaken. She did not know that in East Prussia if you are invited to tea you also stay to supper. But at half-past eight she realised that there was nothing for it but to go and fetch it in. When the ruins of the same meal that had been offered her once already were produced a second time and set out clumsily on the unaccustomed living-room table among the pushed-aside Merediths and Kiplings, the bones of this skeleton being slowly put together under her very eyes, and Ingeborg at last by ceasing to go in and out fetching things and sinking into a chair indicated that that was all, Frau Dremmel, after waiting a little longer, opened her mouth and startled her daughter-in-law by speech. "_Bratkartoffel_," said Frau Dremmel. Ingeborg sat up quickly. After the hours of silence it was uncanny. "_Bratkartoffel_," said Frau Dremmel again. "Did you--did you speak?" said Ingeborg, staring at her. "_Bratkartoffel_," said Frau Dremmel a third time. Ingeborg jumped up and ran across the passage to the laboratory door. "Robert--Robert," she cried, twisting the handle, "come--come quickly--your mother--she's talking, she's saying things--" There was the same excitement and wonder in her voice as there is in that of a parent whose baby has suddenly and for the first time said Papa. Herr Dremmel came out at once. From the sound of her he felt something must have happened. She seized him and pulled him into the living-room. "Now--listen," she said, holding him there facing the sofa. Herr Dremmel looked perplexed. "What is it, Little One?" he asked.