HEIDI
who could share her lessons, and all her other occupations. Fräulein Clara is now over twelve; what age is this child?”
“If the lady will allow me,” began Dete again, in her usual fluent manner, “I myself had lost count of her exact age; she is certainly a little younger, but not much; I cannot say precisely, but I think she is ten, or thereabouts.”
“Grandfather told me I was eight,” put in Heidi. Dete gave her another poke, but as the child had not the least idea why she did so she was not at all confused.
“What—only eight!” cried Fräulein Rottenmeier angrily. “Four years too young! Of what use is such a child! And what have you learnt? What books did you have to learn from?”
“None,” said Heidi.
“How? what? How then did you learn to read?” continued the lady.
“I have never learnt to read, or Peter either,” Heidi informed her.
“Mercy upon us! you do not know how to read! Is it really so?" exclaimed Fräulein Rottenmeier, greatly horrified. “Is it possible–not able to read? What have you learnt then?”
“Nothing,” said Heidi with unflinching truthfulness.
“Young woman,” said the lady to Dete, after having paused for a minute or two to recover from her shock, “this is not at all the sort of companion you led me to suppose; how could you think of bringing me a child like this?”
But Dete was not to be put down so easily, and answered warmly, “If the lady will allow me, the child is exactly what I thought she required; the lady described what she wished for,
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