“You little innocent!  Oh, when I think of forty years ago!” Apollonie cried out, but she complained no further.  Maezli’s answers had clearly given her the conviction that the child could not possibly understand the difficult situation she was in.

Maezli chattered gaily by Apollonie’s side, and as soon as she reached home, wanted to tell her mother what had happened.  But the child was to have no opportunity for that day.  The mother had been very careful in keeping the contents of Miss Remke’s letter from the children in order not to spoil their last two weeks together.  Unfortunately Bruno had that day received a letter from Salo, in which he wrote that in ten days one of the ladies was coming to fetch Leonore home, as she was completely well.  Salo remarked quite frankly that he himself hardly looked forward to Leonore’s coming, as he saw in each of her letters how happy she was in Aunt Maxa’s household and how difficult the separation would be for her.  Whenever he thought how hard it would be for her to grow accustomed to the change again, all his joy vanished at the prospect of her return.  Bruno had read the whole letter aloud and had therewith conjured up such consternation and grief on every side that the mother hardly knew how to comfort them.  Leonore herself was sitting in the midst of the excited group.  She gave no sound and had unsuccessfully tried to swallow her rising tears, but they had got the better of her and were falling over her cheeks in a steady stream.

Mea was crying excitedly, “Oh, mother, you must help us.  You have to write to the ladies that they mustn’t come.  Please don’t let Leonore go!”

Bruno remarked passionately that no one had the right to drag a sick person on a journey against the doctor’s wishes.  The doctor had said the last time he had been here that Leonore was to have not less than a month for her complete recovery.

Kurt cried out over and over again, “Oh, mother, it’s cruel, it’s perfectly cruel!  We all want to keep her here and she wants to stay.  Now she is to be violently taken from us.  Isn’t that absolutely cruel?”

Lippo, coming close to Leonore, also did his best to console her.  He remembered that he could not say “stay with us” any more, but he had another plan.

“Don’t cry, Leonore,” he said encouragingly.  “As soon as I am big, Uncle Philip has promised to give me a house and a lot of meadows.  I’ll be a farmer then, and I’ll write to you to come to live with me, and Salo can come for the holidays, too.”

Leonore could not help smiling, but it only brought more tears when she thought how much love she was receiving from all these children, and that she had to leave them and might never see them again.  The mother’s attempts to comfort them failed entirely, because she had no hope herself.