Paul Schlieben had expected his wife to speak--she would of course know best what to say to the other woman--but she was silent. And the vestryman did not say anything either; as he had started the negotiations he considered it polite to let the gentleman speak now. And Lisa Solheid was also silent. All she did was to drive away the children, who wanted to fall upon the hard bread on the table with ravenous appetites, with a silent gesture. Then she stood quietly beside the cradle, her right hand, which still held the axe with which she had cut the wood, hanging loosely by her side. Her face was gloomy, forbidding, and still a struggle was reflected on it. Paul Schlieben cleared his throat. He would have preferred some other person to have settled the matter for him, but, as this other person was not there and the vestryman only looked at him expectantly, he was compelled to speak. With an affability which might have been taken for condescension but which was nothing but embarrassment he said: "Frau Solheid, the vestryman will have told you what has brought us to you--do you understand me, my good woman?" She nodded. "It's our intention to take your youngest child away with us"--he hesitated, for she had made a movement as though she wanted to deny it--"as our own, to adopt it. Do you understand?" She did not answer, but he continued with as much haste as if she had said yes. "We will treat it as if it really were our own. We shall be able to do more for it than you would, of course, and we----" "Oh, and we'll love it so," his wife broke in. The black-eyed woman turned her head slowly to the side where the fair-haired lady was standing. It was a peculiar look with which she scanned the stranger, who had now approached the cradle. Was it a scrutinising look or a forbidding one? A friendly or unfriendly one? Kate looked at the child with longing eyes. It was no longer crying, it even smiled, and now--now it stretched out its little arms. Oh, it was already so intelligent, it was looking at her, it noticed already that she was fond of it. It tried to get up--oh, it wanted to go to her, to her! Her face flushed with joy. She had already stretched out her hands to take the child, when its mother pushed herself in front of the cradle like a wall. "Neni,"[A] she said in Walloon, in a hard voice. She raised her empty left hand to ward Kate off. And then she made the sign of the cross on the child's forehead and then on its breast. [Footnote A: Non.] But why, why would she not give it all at once? Kate trembled with dismay. She cast an imploring look at her husband, as much as to say: "Help me. I must have the child."