or, The Silver Skates 51

« Ah, Hans! thou ’rt a true, brave lad. We will never part
company with the watch. In his dying hour the dear father
might wake, and ask for it.”

“Might wake, mother!”
know us?”

“© Ay, child,’ almost whispered his mother: “such things

‘echoed Hans, —‘“ wake — and

have been.”

By this time Hans had nearly forgotten his proposed errand
to Amsterdam. His mother had seldom spoken so familiarly
with him. He felt himself now to be not only her son, but
her friend, her adviser.

“You are right, mother. We must never give up the
watch. For the father’s sake, we will guard it always. The
money, though, may come to light when we least expect it.”

“ Never!” cried Dame Brinker, taking the last stitch from
her needle with a jerk, and laying the unfinished knitting
heavily upon her lap. “There is nochance. One thousand
guilders—and all gone in a day! One thousand guilders !
Oh! what ever did become of them? If they went in an evil
way, the thief would have confessed by this on his dying bed:
he would not dare to die with such guilt on his soul.”

“He may not be dead yet,” said Hans, soothingly: any
day we may hear of him.”

“Ah, child!” she said in a changed tone, “what thief
would ever have come here? It was always neat and clean,
thank God! but not fine; for the father and I saved and
saved, that we might haye something laid by. ‘Little and
often soon fills the pouch.’ We found it so in truth: be-
sides, the father had a goodly sum already, for service done to
the Heernocht lands at the time of the great inundation.
Every week we had a guilder left over, sometimes more; for