when he might lie both comfortable and warm and like a little prince in
his cradle!

It was not possible to resist, and in her emotion something like a half
promise escaped her.

Afterwards a neighbour came in and was of exactly the same opinion, and
told of all the little children whom she had known that had died of want
and neglect, only in the houses round about, during the last two years,
because their mothers had had to go out and work all day and could not
pay any one to look after them. And she and the tinsmith's wife both
spoke at once about the same thing--only the same thing.

Barbara sat listening and tending her child. Her heart felt like
breaking. For a moment she thought of going, not to Högden, but in
another way, home with him at once.

It was a temptation.

That night she broke into sobs so ungovernable, that, in order not to
disturb the household in their slumbers, she went out into the soft,
drizzling rain: it quieted and cooled her.

As she was standing the next morning, helping a neighbour's wife to
rinse and wring the clothes by the brook, a pony-carriage stopped in the
road. The coachman--he had gold lace on his hat and coat--got down and
went in to the tinsmith's.

"You must wring that sheet right out, Barbara," said the neighbour's
wife; "it'll be the last you'll wring here, for that's the Consul's