“But you mustn’t do that,” cried Fani, much horrified.  “Don’t you remember how Mrs. Stanhope told us in the very beginning that we must never go into any house where we didn’t know the people? and that we mustn’t speak first to people we don’t know, as we do at home?  You must not go and talk to that man.  Do you hear, Elsli?  Mrs. Stanhope would be very angry with you.”

Elsli thought for a while.  Presently she said, “I do not believe that Mrs. Stanhope meant that I should not speak to a poor man who is in trouble, as this man is.  She only meant that we mustn’t talk with people who ask us questions about where we came from and how we live at home.  I don’t believe she meant people like this man at all.”

“Oh, Elsli, you can’t make distinctions, that way,” said Fani, impatiently.  “All we have to do is to mind what we are told, and not speak to strange people or go to their houses.  Now let’s talk about something else; this sort of talk is tiresome.  Come here; I’ll show you something.”

The children sat down again side by side on the stone bench, with their heads close together, and Fani took something out of his pocket which they both examined carefully.  It was a small, nicely painted landscape, in fresh bright colors.  Elsli studied it silently.

“Do you see what it is?” asked Fani.

“Yes, indeed, I knew it at the first glance.  It is Rosemount; there are the roses and the linden trees.  How beautifully you have done it, Fani!  Won’t Emma be delighted when she sees it, and surprised too?  I’m sure she has no idea that you can paint so well!”

“I’m so glad she is coming,” cried the lad, and his face glowed with pleasure.  “There is no one that I can talk with about being a painter as I can with her.  She understands just how I feel, and is as much interested in it as I am myself.”

“Are you still bent on being an artist?” asked Elsli.

“Yes, indeed, more and more.  Every day, and after every drawing lesson, I care about it more than ever before.  I don’t say anything about it, because I see that Mrs. Stanhope doesn’t like the idea.  You see, Elsli, she means to keep us with her all our lives, just as if we were her own children.  I’m sure of it, from a great many things that she has said.  We can stay here just as long as we don’t do anything to displease her, and of course we sha’n’t do that.  Several times when I’ve said that I should like to be a painter, Mrs. Stanhope has said that it was a very good profession for persons who had no home, and were obliged to live alone, and could travel as much as they pleased in foreign countries.  She said I might paint at Rosemount as much as I chose, but that I must not make it my business, because then I should have to go away to live.  So you see that she is quite decided that we are to stay here.”

Elsli shook her head.

“I don’t know, Fani.  It seems to me that we don’t belong here in this beautiful house.  Don’t you feel so too, Fani?  Somehow as if we were only here on a visit, and that to-morrow we might be going away again.”