opens at a mysterious word.




CHAPTER V

ON THE HOLDERWASEN


Accordingly, when her uncle came the next morning, Amrei declared that
she would remain where she was. There was a strange mixture of
bitterness and benevolence in her uncle's reply:

"Yes, you certainly take after your mother--she would never have
anything to do with us. But I couldn't take Damie alone along with me,
even if he wanted to go; for a long time he wouldn't be able to do
anything but eat bread, whereas you would have been able to earn it
too."

Amrei replied that she preferred to do that here at home for the
present, but that if her uncle remained in the same mind, she and her
brother would come to him at some future time. Indeed, the interest her
uncle now expressed for the children, for a moment, almost made her
waver in her resolution, but in her characteristic way she did not
venture to show any signs of it. She merely said:

"Give my love to your children, and tell them I feel very sorry about
never having seen my nearest relatives; and especially now that they are
going across the seas, since perhaps I shall never see them in my life."