"Ingrates!" gasped papa Karl, and strode up and down the room, while Liseke sobbed her grief out on mamma's shoulder, and Max hid his face in her lap, and Hannah was bravely trying to dry her brown eyes.
"Karl, they are children," mamma Betty said: softly patting Max's head; then lifting it up gently; "Max, go to the confectioners." Max sprang to his feet as a war-horse at the sound of a trumpet.
"Here are ten groschens;"—mamma Betty took them out of her scanty purse with something of a sigh;—"buy as much cake and whatever you like. Liseke tell Marie to make a pitcher of chocolate instantly. My little Hannah, you may set the table."
"Oh, mamma, may I put on the pretty china cups and saucers?" Hannah pleaded, as Max and Liseke bounded out of the room.
"Yes, but be careful, my dear."
"Chocolate!" said papa Karl with some scorn, "bribing them for the sake of peace."
They were children, she said. Had papa Karl forgotten that he, too, had once been a child?
Papa Karl had forgotten this trifling circumstance but he magnanimously declared he forgave them all.
There was a pattering of feet down the entry, and three tear-stained faces looked timidly in.
"The chocolate is on the table," Hannah said bravely, with only one tiny sob. Then the door closed and the little feet patted down the corridor.