Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/112

 hands outstretched. Had she had a hard day? Was the lecture good? How brown his beard was, and how deep and faithful his brown eyes were! And he used to sing—why were there no bass voices in the States? “Kennst du das Land,” he used to sing, and his mother cried softly to herself for pleasure. And once she herself had cried a little.

“No,” she said to the girl who was reciting, “no, it takes the dative. I cannot seem to impress sufficiently on your minds the necessity for learning that list thoroughly. You may translate now.”

And they translated. How they drawled it over, the beautiful, rich German. Hermann had begged so, but she had felt differently then. She had loved her work in anticipation. To marry and settle down—she was not ready. It would be so good to be independent. And now— But it was too late. That was years ago. Hermann must have found some yellow-braided, blue-eyed Dorothea by this—