k, then he tore it off and ran on bareheaded, he was in such a
hurry.

What was it that drew him so powerfully to those people?

The smile disappeared from Kate's face; she left the window.

Wolfgang was happy. He was sitting with the Laemkes, in the room in
which they also did the cooking when the weather was cold. The parents'
bed was divided off by means of a curtain, Frida slept on the sofa, and
Artur in the little room next to it in which were also kept the shovels
and brooms which Laemke used for cleaning the house and street.

It was not winter yet, still pleasant autumn, but the room was
already warm and cosy. The stronger smell of the coffee, which Frau
Laemke was making in the large enamelled pot, mingled with the delicate
fragrance of the pale monthly rose and carnation, myrtle and geranium,
which had been pushed close to the window that was almost level with
the ground and were all in flower. At home Wolfgang never got coffee,
but he got some there; and he sipped it as he saw the others do, only
he was even more delighted with it than they. And no fine pastry had
ever tasted so good as did that plain bun, that was more like bread
than like a cake. He ate it with his mouth open, and when Mrs.
Laemke pushed a second one to him, the guest of honour, he took it with
radiant eyes.

Frau Laemke felt much flattered at his visit. But she had not made
much of the doll; she had taken it from Frida at once and locked it
into the cupboard: "So that you don't smash it at once. Besides, your
father isn't a gentleman that you can play with dolls every day." But
later on when her husband came down from the lodge, in which he sat in
his leisure hours mending boots and shoes, to drink a cup of coffee and
eat a bun on Frida's birthday, the doll was fetched out again and shown
him.

"Fine, isn't it? She's got it from Wolfgang's mamma. Just look,
Laemke"--the woman lifted the doll's pink dress up and showed the white
petticoat trimmed with a frill edged with narrow lace--"such trimming.
Just like that I sewed round the dress Frida wore at her christening.
She was the first one; bless you, and you think at the time it's
something wonderful. Oh dear!"--she sighed and laid the doll back in
the cupboard in which the clean pillowcases and Frida's and her Sunday
hats were together with all kinds of odds and ends--"how time flies.
Now she's already nine."

"Ten," corrected Frida. "I'm ten to-day, mother."

"Right--dear me, ar