"You are convicted," rejoined the same voice.
"Do you think I do not know where that gulden came from? Let me see your
godmother's purse."
I began to feel the tears choking me; but Fritz did not seem to notice
them.
"Else," he said, "you may practise your little deceptive arts on all the
rest of the family, but they will not do with me. Do you think you will
ever persuade me you have grown thin by eating sausages and cakes and
wonderful holiday puddings every day of your life? Do you think the
hungry delight in the eyes of those boys was occasioned by their
every-day, ordinary fare? Do you think," he added, taking my hands in
one of his, "I did not see how blue and cold, and covered with
chilblains, these little hands were, which piled up the great logs on
the hearth when I came in this morning?"
Of course I could do nothing but put my head on his shoulder and cry
quietly. It was of no use denying anything. Then he added rapidly, in a
low deep voice--
"Do you think I could help seeing our mother at her old devices,
pretending she had no appetite, and liked nothing so much as bones and
sinews?"
"O Fritz," I sobbed, "I cannot help it. What am I to do?"
"At least," he said, more cheerfully, "promise me, little woman, you
will never make a distinguished stranger of your brother again, and
endeavour by all kinds of vain and deceitful devices to draw the whole
weight of the family cares on your own shoulders."
"Do you think it is a sin I ought to confess, Fritz?" I said; "I did not
mean it deceitfully; but I am always making such blunders about right
and wrong. What can I do?"
"Does Aunt Ursula know?" he asked rather fiercely.
"No; the mother will not let me tell any one. She thinks they would
reflect on our father; and he told her only last week, he has a plan
about a new way of smelting lead, which is, I think, to turn it all into
silver. That would certainly be a wonderful discovery; and he thinks the
Elector would take it up at once, and we should probably have to leave
Eisenach and live near the Electoral Court. Perhaps even the Emperor
would require us to communicate the secret to him, and then we should
have to leave the country altogether; for you know there are great
lead-mines in Spain; and if once people could make silver out of lead,
it would be much easier and safer than going across the great ocean to
procure the native silver from the Indian savages."
Fritz drew a long breath.
"And meantime?" he said.
"Well, meantime," I said, "it is of course, sometimes a little difficult
to get on."