thout raising her head, without looking at the table or at the
cradle she said in a loud voice--but there was no ring in the voice:
"Allons bon. Djhan-Pire est da vosse."[A]

[Footnote A: Eh bien. Jean-Pierre est a vous.]

And she turned away, walked to the hearth with a heavy tread and
raked up the smouldering peat.

What indifference! This woman certainly did not deserve to be a
mother. Kate's gentle eyes began to blaze. Schlieben was angry too; no,
they need not have any scruples about taking the child away from there.
He was filled with disgust.

The woman behaved now as though the whole affair did not concern her
any longer. She busied herself at the hearth whilst the vestryman
counted the notes--licking his fingers repeatedly and examining both
sides of each one--and then put them carefully into the envelope which
the gentleman had given him.

"There they are, Lisa, put them into your pocket."

She tore them out of his hand with a violent gesture, and, lifting
up her dress to a good height, she slipped them into her miserable
ragged petticoat.

The last thing had still to be settled. Even if Paul Schlieben felt
certain that nobody there would inquire about the child any more,
the formalities had to be observed. Loosening his pencil from his
watch-chain--for where was ink to come from there?--he drew up the
mother's deed of surrender on a leaf from his pocketbook. The vestryman
signed it as witness. Then the woman put her three crosses
below; she had learnt to write once, but had forgotten it again.

"There!" Paul Schlieben rose from the hard bench on which he had sat
whilst writing with a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, now everything
was settled, now the vestryman had only to procure him the birth and
baptismal certificates and send them to him. "Here--this is my address.
And here--this is for any outlay." He covertly pressed a couple of gold
coins into the old man's hand, who smiled when he felt them there.

Well, now they would take the boy with them at once? he
supposed.

Kate, who had been standing motionless staring at the mother with
big eyes as though she could not understand what she saw, woke up. Of
course they would take the child with them at once, she would not leave
it a single hour longer there. And she took it quickly out of the
cradle, pressed it caressingly to her bosom and wrapped it up in the
warm wide cloak she was wearing. Now it was her child that she had
fought such a h