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108 "Do you know what's so rotten? That fellow's hidden Mamma."

"No, Uncle, really he hasn't."

"Yes, he has, my boy. The fellow's buried her, somewhere in the dunes. Shall we go and look for her?"

"Uncle, I'm quite ready to go for a walk, but Mamma is not hidden or buried: she's gone to Baarn, to see Aunt Bertha, and she'll be here this afternoon."

Ernst shook his head and grinned contemptuously:

"You people are always so obstinate. Do you mean to say you don't hear Mamma? Can't you hear her moaning? She's been moaning all night. That fellow's buried her, I tell you."

"I don't believe it, Uncle, but at any rate we can go for a walk. . . ."

"Yes, we'll look for her."

They went through a pine-wood: it was cool and dark as a church. Ernst kept poking the ground with his stick, kept listening to the ground:

"She's farther on," he said, "in the dunes. Her voice comes from farther away. Don't you hear it?"

"No, Uncle."

Ernst shrugged his shoulders:

"You people are so dull-witted. You have no senses . . . and no souls," he said, roughly. And he immediately added, as though afraid that he had