“Don’t send the nasty things alive, will you, Elsli, dear?  You’ll stuff them first, won’t you?”

Just then, who should make his appearance but Feklitus, in his very best Sunday suit, and at the same moment Marget’s voice was heard from the cottage, calling in a tone loud enough to sound above Hans’ screams:—­

“Elsli, where are you?  It’s strange that you can’t stay in the house two minutes at a time to-day.”

Rikli ran away; but Feklitus seized Elsli by the arm and held her fast.

“I want to go to see the lady at Oak-ridge,” he said, roughly.  “I am your cousin, and I want to tell her so, and that some time or other we mean to come and visit you down there by the Rhine; but I’m not going alone, and you’ve just got to come with me.”

“Let me alone; don’t you hear that I am wanted in the house!” And Elsli tried to free herself from his hold.

“You shall come,” said the boy; and he grasped Elsli still more firmly, and dragged her away with him.

Oscar, Emma, Fred, and Rikli all met with the same reception from Kathri on their return home; she stood on the front porch, and said to one after another as they came up, in a warning whisper:—­

“Hush, hush! don’t make a noise!  Mrs. Stickhop is in the parlor, come to say good-bye.”

Poor Elsli did not sleep much that last night at home.  She was excited by all the last words and commissions and leave-takings of her friends, and oppressed by the thought of what was before her on the morrow, and it was in a half-dreamy state that early on the following morning she began her journey, with Mrs. Stanhope and Clarissa, in the large carriage, along the high road, through the country that lay still in the dawning light.  Suddenly a folded paper, weighted with a small stone, flew through the air into the carriage window.

“Good-bye, Elsli.  I wish I could go with you,” cried a voice from the road-side.  It was Fred, who had not been able to finish his work before, and who had only painted his last snail just in season to throw his now illustrated list after Elsli.

This last greeting brought the tears to Elsli’s eyes.  She seemed now fully to realize that she was leaving home, leaving all who had ever known and loved her.  Clarissa saw it all, and, taking Elsli’s hand in hers, she expressed, by the warm grasp that she gave her, a mother’s sympathy and love.

For the next week the doctor’s family were busy talking over and over all the events of the past few weeks, from the arrival of little Nora to Elsli’s final departure.  On the tenth day came a long letter from Elsli, which gave food for farther conversation.  The mother and the aunt and the four brothers and sisters were all equally impatient to know the contents.  The letter was addressed to Emma, who knew it from its envelope, opened it out, and exclaimed with delight:—­

“It is eight pages long!  I will read it aloud to you”