“Yes, you certainly take after your mother—­she would never have anything to do with us.  But I couldn’t take Damie alone along with me, even if he wanted to go; for a long time he wouldn’t be able to do anything but eat bread, whereas you would have been able to earn it too.”

Amrei replied that she preferred to do that here at home for the present, but that if her uncle remained in the same mind, she and her brother would come to him at some future time.  Indeed, the interest her uncle now expressed for the children, for a moment, almost made her waver in her resolution, but in her characteristic way she did not venture to show any signs of it.  She merely said: 

“Give my love to your children, and tell them I feel very sorry about never having seen my nearest relatives; and especially now that they are going across the seas, since perhaps I shall never see them in my life.”

Then her uncle stood up quickly, and commissioned Amrei to give his love to Damie, for he himself had no time to wait to bid him farewell.  And with that he went away.

When Damie came soon afterward and heard of his uncle’s departure, he wanted to run after him, and even Amrei felt a similar impulse.  But she restrained herself and did not yield to it.  She spoke and acted as if she were obeying some one’s command in every word she said and in every movement she made; and yet her thoughts were wandering along the road by which her uncle had gone.  She walked through the village, leading her brother by the hand, and nodded to all the people she met.  She felt just as if she had been away and was now returning to them all.  Her uncle had wanted to tear her away, and she thought that everybody else must be as glad that she had not gone, as she was herself.  But she soon found out that they would not only have been glad to let her go, but that they were positively angry with her because she had not gone.  Crappy Zachy opened his eyes wide at her and said: 

“Child, you have an obstinate head of your own—­the whole village is angry with you for spurning your good fortune.  Still, who knows whether it would have been good fortune?  But they call it so now, at any rate, and everybody that looks at you casts it up to you how much you receive from the parish.  So make haste and get yourself off the public charity lists.”

“But what am I to do?”

“Farmer Rodel’s wife would like to have you in her service, but the old man won’t listen to it.”

Amrei very likely felt that henceforward she would have to be doubly brave, in order to escape the reproaches of her own conscience, as well as those of others; and so she asked again: 

“Don’t you know of anything at all?”

“Yes, certainly; but you must not be ashamed of anything—­except begging.  Have you not heard that foolish Fridolin yesterday killed two geese belonging to a farmer’s wife?  The goosekeeper’s place is vacant, and I advise you to take it.”