! It
is not yours alone; it is ours--"

Strehla flung the emptied jug on the bricks with a force that shivered
it to atoms, and, rising to his feet, struck his son a blow that
felled him to the floor. It was the first time in all his life that he
had ever raised his hand against any one of his children.

Then he took the oil-lamp that stood at his elbow and stumbled off to
his own chamber with a cloud before his eyes.

"What has happened?" said August, a little while later, as he opened
his eyes and saw Dorothea weeping above him on the wolfskin before the
stove. He had been struck backward, and his head had fallen on the
hard bricks where the wolfskin did not reach. He sat up a moment, with
his face bent upon his hands.

"I remember now," he said, very low, under his breath.

Dorothea showered kisses on him, while her tears fell like rain.

"But, oh, dear, how could you speak so to father?" she murmured. "It
was very wrong."

"No, I was right," said August, and his little mouth, that hitherto
had only curled in laughter, curved downward with a fixed and bitter
seriousness. "How dare he? How dare he?" he muttered, with his head
sunk in his hands. "It is not his alone. It belongs to us all. It is
as much yours and mine as it is his."

Dorothea could only sob in answer. She was too frightened to speak.
The authority of their parents in the house had never in her
remembrance been questioned.

"Are you hurt by the fall dear August?" she murmured, at length, for
he looked to her so pale and strange.

"Yes--no. I do not know. What does it matter?"

He sat up upon the wolfskin with passionate pain upon his face; all
his soul was in rebellion, and he was only a child and was powerless.

"It is a sin; it is a theft; it is an infamy," he said slowly, his
eyes fastened on the gilded feet of Hirschvogel.

"Oh, August, do not say such things of father!" sobbed his sister.
"Whatever he does, _we_ ought to think it right."

August laughed aloud.

"Is it right that he should spend his money in drink?--that he should
let orders lie unexecuted?--that he should do his work so ill that no
one cares to employ him?--that he should live on grandfather's
charity, and then dare sell a thing that is ours every whit as much as
it is his? To sell Hirschvogel! Oh, dear God! I would sooner sell my
soul!"

"August!" cried Dorothea, with piteous entreaty. He terrified her, she
could not recognise her little, gay, gentle brother in