Trude has pushed her head deep into her collar and is looking furtively across at the two brothers, like a high-spirited child that would like to get into mischief but first wants to make quite sure that no one is watching. This silence is evidently not to her taste, but she is already too well schooled to break it. Meantime she amuses herself by making little pellets of bread and shooting them, unnoticed by either of the brothers, into the midst of the herd of sparrows hopping about the veranda, with greedy intent. There is one in particular, a little, dirty fellow, who beats all the others' cunning and alertness. As soon as a grain of food comes rolling along he spreads both wings, screams like mad, and while fighting he endeavors to get it away by beating his wings, so that he can take possession of it comfortably while the others are still wildly hacking at each other. This maneuver he repeats four or five times, and always successfully, till one of his comrades finds out his trick and does it still better. This gives Trude a fit of laughing which she tries to suppress by stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth and holding her breath till she gets quite blue in the face--Then when she finds it absolutely impossible to contain herself any longer, she jumps up to get away, but before she reaches the door, her laughter bursts forth and she disappears into the darkness of the passage, screaming loudly with delight. Both brothers are roused from their dreaming. "What's up?" asks Johannes, startled. Martin shakes his head as he looks after his young, foolish wife whose tricks he well knows; then after a time he takes his brother's hand and says, pointing to the door: "Well--does she look as if she would oust you?" "No, indeed," answers Johannes with a somewhat uneasy laugh. "Oh, my boy," growls Martin, scratching his bushy head, "what a lot of worry I have been through!--I tossed about in my bed a long night when I thought of you! I mean on account of the wrong I might be doing you."--Then after a time--"And yet when I look at her--she is so fair--so innocent--say yourself, my boy, could I possibly help loving her? When I saw her--ah--why it was all over with me.--In so many ways she reminded me of you--merry, and bright-eyed and full of mischief, just like you.--Of course she was a child and has remained one to the present day--Charmless and wild and playful as a child.--And I tell you--she wants holding in tighter--her spirits run away with her.--But that is just how I love her to be"--a tender look brightens his features--"and if I rightly think it over, I would not even miss one of her ridiculous doings. You know I always must have some one to watch over--formerly I had you, now she is the one." After relieving his feelings in this manner, he once more becomes silent. "And are you happy?" asks Johannes. Martin hides himself in a thick cloud of smoke, and from out of that he mutters after a time: "Well, that depends!" "On what?"