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Back of the girl, knitting as if all Zanah were dependent upon her for winter mittens, sat a woman of sour visage. As her needles moved she watched the school-master and the girl. When Adolph Schneider entered the room Walda Kellar looked past him, and her eyes met those of the stranger with a look that betrayed no consciousness of his presence, although he blushed like a school-boy. Walda greeted the Herr Doktor with a slight inclination of her head. Then she whispered to the simple one, who closed the Bible, gave it to the school-master, and took his place on a stool near the teacher’s platform.

“Mother Kaufmann, we will go back to the kinderhaus,” said Walda Kellar. She spoke the German so that it seemed the most musical tongue Everett had ever heard. The elder woman rolled up her knitting and put it into the capacious pocket of her gingham apron.

“Gerson Brandt, thy boys are truly well behaved; thou hast done much with them.”

Walda spoke to the school-master, who bestowed upon her a look of gratitude and tenderness.