But he answered, I should very soon find it out for myself; and he jumped
over the wall and went into old Lizzie her house, which stands close by
the churchyard.

My child had made ready some veal broth for dinner, for which I mostly use
to leave everything else; but I could not swallow one spoonful, but sat
resting my head on my hand, and doubted whether I should tell her or no.
Meanwhile the old maid came in ready for a journey, and with a bundle in
her hand, and begged me with tears to give her leave to go. My poor child
turned pale as a corpse, and asked in amaze what had come to her? but she
merely answered, "Nothing!" and wiped her eyes with her apron. When I
recovered my speech, which had well-nigh left me at seeing that this
faithful old creature was also about to forsake me, I began to question
her why she wished to go; she who had dwelt with me so long, and who would
not forsake us even in the great famine, but had faithfully borne up
against it, and, indeed, had humbled me by her faith, and had exhorted me
to stand out gallantly to the last, for which I should be grateful to her
as long as I lived. Hereupon she merely wept and sobbed yet more, and at
length brought out that she still had an old mother of eighty living in
Liepe, and that she wished to go and nurse her till her end. Hereupon my
daughter jumped up and answered with tears, "Alas, old Ilse, why wilt thou
leave us, for thy mother is with thy brother? Do but tell me why thou wilt
forsake me, and what harm have I done thee, that I may make it good to
thee again." But she hid her face in her apron and sobbed and could not
get out a single word; whereupon my child drew away the apron from her
face, and would have stroked her cheeks to make her speak. But when Ilse
saw this she struck my poor child's hand and cried, "Ugh!" spat out before
her, and straightway went out at the door. Such a thing she had never done
even when my child was a little girl, and we were both so shocked that we
could neither of us say a word.