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 ever, he may like them and then he will be gay. After all, what of it? They must talk of something! Maybe one of the apples will be decayed and she will show him the worm and cry, “Oh! oh! oh! dear Otto, a worm! Such a big, long worm!” and he of course will step on it and thus conversation will ensue.

Alas! the apple was not wormy and her husband did not indeed like lentils, and during dinner he was somewhat morose, at any rate dull and lazy in thought and act.

He cleaned his teeth for a long time with a toothpick which she herself had fashioned for him by winding strings of small beads around a tapering quill, according to a pattern she had seen at the convent.

She recalled that this morning she had seen the first faded leaf fall from a tree. “Just think, Otto, the leaves have begun to fall,” she said, gazing at him with her large, clear eyes which hid nothing from those returning her gaze.

“Well, that’s excellent!” cried her husband. “Why ‘excellent,’ Otto dear?”

“Because the falling of the leaves ushers in the season when, as before, I shall go among my old friends to spend the long winter evenings.”

“Where is it you will go ‘among friends’?”.

“Oh, down to the inn for a space of two short hours. You have nothing against it, have you, love?”

His young wife reflected whether or not it was