or, The Silver Skates 293

scarcely cared to eat during the past few days; scarcely realized
their condition. Dame Brinker had felt so sure that she and
the children could earn money before the worst came, that she
had given herself up to the joy of her husband’s recovery.
She had not even told Hans that the few pieces of silver in the
old mitten were quite gone.

Hans reproached himself, now, that he had not hailed the
doctor when he saw him enter his coach, and drive rapidly
away in the direction of Amsterdam.

“ Perhaps there is some mistake,” he thought. “ The meester
surely would have known that meat and sweet wine were not
at our command. And yet the father looks very weak, he
certainly does. I must get work. If Mynheer van Holp
were back from Rotterdam, I could get plenty to do. But
Master Peter told me to let him know if he could do aught to
serve us. I shall go to him at once. Oh, if it were but
summer !”

All this time Hans was hastening towards the canal. Soon
his skates were on ; and he was skimming rapidly toward the
residence of Mynheer van Holp.

“The father must have meat and wine at once,” he
muttered. ‘ But how can I earn the money in time to buy
them to-day? There is no other way but to go, as I promised,
to Master Peter. What would a gift of meat and wine be to
him? When the father is once fed, I can rush down to
Amsterdam, and earn the morrow’s supply.”

Then came other thoughts, — thoughts that made his heart
thump heavily, and his cheeks burn with anew shame. “It
is begging, to say the least. Not one of the Brinkers has ever
been a beggar. Shall I be the first? Shall my poor father,
just coming back into life, learn that his family have asked for