Page:Heidi - Spyri - 1922.djvu/144

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HEIDI

street, and can describe her to you; she has short, curly black hair, and black eyes, and wears a brown dress, and does not talk quite like we do.”

“Oho!” thought Sebastian, laughing to himself, “the little miss has evidently been up to more mischief.” Then, drawing the boy inside he said aloud, “I understand now; come with me and wait outside the door till I tell you to go in. Be sure you begin playing your organ the instant you get inside the room; the lady is very fond of music.”

Sebastian knocked at the study door, and a voice said, “Come in.”

“There is a boy outside who says he must speak to Miss Clara herself,” Sebastian announced.

Clara was delighted at such an extraordinary and unexpected message.

“Let him come in at once,” replied Clara; “he must come in, must he not,” she added, turning to her tutor, “if he wishes so particularly to see me?”

The boy was already inside the room, and according to Sebastian’s directions immediately began to play his organ. Fräulein Rottenmeier, wishing to escape the A B C, had retired with her work to the dining-room. All at once she stopped and listened. Did those sounds come up from the street? And yet they seemed so near! But how could there be an organ playing in the study? And yet—it surely was so. She rushed to the other end of the long dining-room and tore open the door. She could hardly believe her eyes. There, in the middle of the study, stood a ragged boy turning away at his organ in the most energetic manner. The tutor appeared to be making

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