332 'GOD'S PEACE'
ironing-room, chatting cosily and happily as with one of our own age. But when the day came that we had to leave the old town she stood at the steamer and wept as if her heart would break.
She never forgot her little friends.
Years went by. I was already a big boy who had passed my first exams., when a letter came saying that Ann Marie was dead. This Ann Marie to whom I, with usual childish forgetfulness, had scarcely given a thought, had made my brother and me, with two other children, her heirs. The in- herited capital was fifty daler (£5), to be divided equally, twelve and a half daler to each. Fifty daler ! that meant eight hundred work-days' salary saved together, six skilling by six skilling.
I used my share in travelling. Thanks to Ann Marie's savings I had a delightful fortnight's walk- ing trip after my exams, were finished.
' And therefore, Greta, tears come into my eyes when I look at this poor house where the old women are sitting in the windows behind wall- flowers and geraniums.'
NOVEMBER.
XXIII A /r ^ friend in the institution is the only ac- J_Yj_ quaintance Greta and I visit. A little while ago we invited her to a chocolate party in my attic on Rough-Hill. She was fetched in a cab, had whipped cream on the chocolate, and when she again departed in her carriage she took with her a basket filled with fruit and little pots of
