Maezli ran joyfully away; the errand seemed to please her.  She received the guest with excellent manners and led her into the front room to the sofa, for Maezli knew exactly the way her mother always did.  Then she gave her mother’s message.

“Very well, very well, And what do you want to do on this beautiful Sunday?” the lady asked,

“Take a walk,” Maezli answered rapidly.  “Are they still locked up?” she then casually asked.

“Who?  Who?  Whom do you mean?” and the lady looked somewhat disapprovingly at the little girl.

“Edwin and Eugen,” Maezli answered fearlessly.

“I should like to know where you get such ideas,” the lady said with growing irritation.  “I should like to know why the boys should be locked up.”

“Because they are so mean to Loneli all the time,” Maezli declared.

The mother entered now.  To her friendly greeting she only received a very cold reply.

“I only wonder, Mrs. Rector,” the guest began immediately in an irritated manner, “what meanness that little poison-toad of a Loneli has spread and invented about my boys.  But I wonder still more that some people should believe such things.”

Mrs. Maxa was very much astonished that her visitor should have already heard what had taken place the night before, as she knew that her sons would not speak of it of their own free will.

“As long as you know about it already, I shall tell you what happened,” she said.  “You have apparently been misinformed.  It had nothing to do whatever with a meanness on Loneli’s part.  Maezli, please join the other children and stay there till I come,” the mother interrupted herself, turning to the little girl, whose eyes had been expectantly glued on the visitor’s face in the hope of hearing if the two boys were still locked up.

Maezli walked away slowly, still hoping that she would hear the news before she reached the door.  But Maezli was doomed to be disappointed, as no word was spoken.  Then Mrs. Maxa related the incident of the evening before as it occurred.

“That is nothing at all,” said the district attorney’s wife in answer.  “Those are only childish jokes.  All children hold out their feet sometimes to trip each other.  Such things should not be reckoned as faults big enough to scold children for.”

“I do not agree with you,” said Mrs. Maxa.  “Such kinds of jokes are very much akin to roughness, and from small cruelties larger ones soon result.  Loneli has really suffered harm from this action, and I think that joking ceases under such circumstances.”

“As I said, it is not worth the trouble of losing so many words about.  I feel decidedly that too much fuss is made about the grandmother and the child.  Apollonie does not seem to get it out of her head that her name was Castle-Apollonie and she carries her head so high that the child will soon learn it from her.  But I have come to talk with you about something much more important.”