ANOTHER GRANDMOTHER
words and now with a sigh exclaimed, “Oh, if only I could read now!”
“It won’t take you long now to learn, that I can see; and now we must go down to Clara; bring the books with you.” And hand in hand the two returned to the study.
Since the day when Heidi had so longed to go home, and Fräulein Rottenmeier had met her and scolded her on the steps, and told her how wicked and ungrateful she was to try and run away, and what a good thing it was that Herr Sesemann knew nothing about it, a change had come over the child. She had at last understood that day that she could not go home when she wished, as Dete had told her, but that she would have to stay on in Frankfurt for a long, long time, perhaps for ever. She had also understood that Herr Sesemann would think it ungrateful of her if she wished to leave, and she believed that the grandmother and Clara would think the same. So there was nobody to whom she dared confide her longing to go home, for she would not for the world have given the grandmother, who was so kind to her, any reason for being as angry with her as Fräulein Rottenmeier had been. But the weight of trouble on the little heart grew heavier and heavier; she could no longer eat her food, and every day she grew a little paler. She lay awake for long hours at night, for as soon as she was alone and everything was still around her, the picture of the mountain with its sunshine and flowers rose vividly before her eyes; and when at last she fell asleep it was to dream of the rocks and the snowfield turning crimson in the evening light, and waking in the morning she would think herself back at the hut and prepare to run joyfully out into the sun—and then—
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