GREAT COMMOTION IN THE LARGE HOUSE
efforts to speak, but his voice could not be heard. Both children were listening delightedly to the music.
“Leave off! leave off at once!” screamed Fräulein Rottenmeier. But her voice was drowned by the music. She was making a dash for the boy, when she saw something on the ground crawling towards her feet-a dreadful dark object—a tortoise. At this sight she jumped higher than she had for many long years before, shrieking with all her might, “Sebastian! Sebastian!”
The organ-player suddenly stopped, for this time her voice had risen louder than the music. Sebastian was standing outside bent double with laughter, for he had been peeping to see what was going on. By the time he entered the room Fräulein Rottenmeier had sunk into a chair.
“Take them all out, boy and animal! Get them away at once!” she commanded him.
Sebastian pulled the boy away, the latter having quickly caught up the tortoise, and when he had got him outside he put something into his hand. “There is the fourpence from Miss Clara, and another fourpence for the music. You did it all quite right!” and with that he shut the front door upon him.
Quietness reigned again in the study, and lessons began once more; Fräulein Rottenmeier now took up her station in the study in order by her presence to prevent any further dreadful goings-on.
But soon another knock came to the door, and Sebastian again stepped in, this time to say that some one had brought a large basket with orders that it was to be given at once to Miss Clara.
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