“How do you do, Mr. Castle-Steward?  Are you angry with me because I have not come for so long?” she called out to him from a distance, and a moment later she was by his side.  “It was only on account of Leonore,” Maezli continued.  “I should otherwise have come ages ago.  But when the others are all in school she can’t be left alone.  So I stay with her and I like to do it because she is so nice.  Everybody likes Leonore, everybody likes her terribly; Kurt and Bruno, too.  They stay home all the time now because Leonore is with us.  You ought to know how nice she is.  You would like her dreadfully right away.”

“Do you think so?” said the gentleman, while something like a smile played about his lips.  “Is it your sister?”

“My sister?  No, indeed,” Maezli said, quite astonished at his error.  “She is Salo’s sister, the boy who was with us and who had to go back to Hanover.  She has to go back to Hanover, too, as soon as she is well, and mama always gets very sad when she talks about it.  But Mea gets sadder still and even cries.  Leonore hates to leave us, but she has to.  She cried dreadfully once because she can never, never have a home.  As long as she lives she’ll have to be homeless.  The beggar-woman who came with the two ragged children said that.  They were homeless, and Leonore said afterwards, ‘I am that way, too,’ and then she cried terribly, and we were sent out into the garden.  She might have cried still more if she had thought about our having a home with a mama while she has none.  She has no papa or anybody.  But you must not think that she is a homeless child with a torn dress; she looks quite different.  Maybe she can find a home in Apollonie’s little house under the hill.  Then Salo can come home to her in the holidays.  But mama does not think that this can be.  But Leonore wants it ever so much.  I must bring her to you one day.”

“Who are you, child?  What is your name,” asked the gentleman abruptly.

Maezli looked at him in astonishment.

“I am Maezli,” she said, “and mama has the same name as I have.  But they don’t call her that.  Some people call her Mrs. Rector, some mama, and Uncle Philip says Maxa to her and Leonore calls her Aunt Maxa.”

“Is your father the rector of Nolla?” the gentleman asked.

“He has been in heaven a long while, and he was in heaven before we came here, but mama wanted to come back to Nolla because this was her home.  We don’t live in the rectory now, but where there is a garden with lots of paths, and where the big currant-bushes are in the corners, here and here and here.”  Maezli traced the position of the bushes exactly on the lionskin.  The castle-steward, leaning back in his chair, said nothing more.  “Do you find it very tiresome here?” Maezli asked sympathetically.

“Yes, I do,” was the answer.

“Have you no picture-book”

“No.”

“Oh, I’ll bring you one, as soon as I come again.  And then—­but perhaps you have a headache?” Maezli interrupted herself.  “When my mama wrinkles up her forehead the way you do she always has a headache, and one must get her some cold water to make it better.  I’ll quickly get some,” and the next instant Maezli was gone.