HEIDI
to say, that I will not send the child to school nor come and live among you.”
“Then God help you!” said the pastor, and he turned sadly away and left the hut and went down the mountain.
Alm-Uncle was out of humor. When Heidi said as usual that afternoon, “Can we go down to grandmother now?” he answered, “Not to-day.” He did not speak again the whole of that day, and the following morning when Heidi again asked the same question, he replied, “We will see.” But before the dinner bowls had been cleared away another visitor arrived, and this time it was Cousin Dete. She had a fine feathered hat on her head, and a long trailing skirt to her dress which swept the floor, and on the floor of a goatherd’s hut there are all sorts of things that do not belong to a dress.
The grandfather looked her up and down without uttering a word. But Dete was prepared with an exceedingly amiable speech and began at once to praise the looks of the child. She was looking so well she should hardly have known her again, and it was evident that she had been happy and well-cared-for with her grandfather; but she had never lost sight of the idea of taking the child back again, for she well understood that the little one must be much in his way, but she had not been able to do it at first. Day and night, however, she had thought over the means of placing the child somewhere, and that was why she had come to-day, for she had just heard of something that would be a lucky chance for Heidi beyond her most ambitious hopes. Some immensely wealthy relatives of the people she was serving, who had the most splendid house almost in Frankfurt, had an only daughter, young and an invalid,
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