ick Rapp was his brother:
he would not leave his wife."

"Well, and then?"

The two old women looked at each other, warningly, but Christina, being
on the full tide of confidence, answered at last in a whisper, "Father
Rapp did hold a counsel mit five others."

"And his brother?"

"He was killed. He did never see his child."

"But," I resumed, breaking the long silence that followed, "your women
do not care to go back to their husbands? They dwell in purer thoughts
than earthly love?"

"Hein?" said the woman with a vacant face.

"Were you married?"--to Fredrika, who sat stiffly knitting a blue
woollen sock.

"Nein," vacantly counting the stitches. "Das ist not gut, Father Rapp
says. He knows."

"_She_ war not troth-plight even," interrupted the other eagerly, with a
contemptuous nod, indicating by a quick motion a broken nose, which
might have hindered Fredrika's chances of matrimony. "There is Rachel,"
pointing to a bent figure in a neighboring garden; "she was to marry in
the summer, and in spring her man came mit Father Rapp. He was a sickly
man."

"And she followed him?"

"Ya. He is dead."

"And Rachel?"

"_Ya wohl!_ There she is," as the figure came down the street, passing
us.

It was only a bent old Dutchwoman, with a pale face and fixed, tearless
eyes, that smiled kindly at sight of the child; but I have never seen in
any tragedy, since, the something which moved me so suddenly and deeply
in that quiet face and smile. I followed her with my eyes, and then
turned to the women. Even the stupid knitter had dropped her work, and
met my look with a vague pity and awe in her face.

"It was not gut she could not marry. It is many years, but she does at
no time forget," she mumbled, taking up her stocking again. Something
above her daily life had struck a quick response from even her, but it
was gone now.

Christina eagerly continued; "And there is ----" (naming a woman, one of
the directors.) "She would be troth-plight, if Father Rapp had not said
it must not be. So they do be lovers these a many years, and every night
he does play beneath her window until she falls asleep."

When I did not answer, the two women began to talk together in
undertones, examining the cut of Tony's little clothes, speculating as
to their price, and so forth. I rose and shook myself. Why! here in the
new life, in Arcadia, was there the world,--old love and hunger to be
mothers, and the veriest gossip? But these were