that you want to see us, dear
little girl. How did you hear of us?" asked the lady, and took off
Sally's straw hat, while she put the question to the child. She placed
the hat on the table and smoothed her hair with a mother's touch.

Now Sally related all in full confidence how it had happened, and that
she and her two brothers had wanted to come yesterday to find out who
was coming to live with Marianne, and to find out how the piano and all
the other things could find room in the little house. Sally now, for the
first time, looked around the room and she had to wonder a little, for
she saw only the piano and four bare walls, and then there were the two
easy chairs on which she and the lady were sitting, and the small table.
She knew that besides this room there was a very small bedroom, where
two beds could hardly find room. Sally could not set herself to rights;
all was so different from what she had imagined. She had expected to see
strange and foreign things standing about everywhere and now she saw
nothing besides an old piano. And yet the lady who sat before her in a
black silken dress looked more aristocratic than Sally could ever have
imagined; and the boy in his velvet suit looked quite like the old
knights in Edi's beautiful picture book, and he had brought her a seat
without anyone telling him, and was more refined and courteous than she
had ever before seen a boy.

When Sally turned her surprised eyes again to the lady, she saw such a
painful expression in her face that it came involuntarily into her mind
how the mother had said, that of course "she would not go there for the
sake of staring at the people," and she felt that she was doing
something very much like it. Sally rose. All at once she remembered to
whom she really wanted to go, so she said hastily: "I must go to
Kaetheli; she may be sick." With these words she quickly offered her
hand to the lady.

The lady, too, had risen; she took the proffered hand, held it between
both of hers, and looked once more so lovingly into the child's eyes,
that her little heart was moved. Then she kissed her forehead and said:
"You dear child, you were a friendly picture in our quiet room."

Then she let go of her hand, and Sally went through the open door into
the small kitchen. The boy, meanwhile, had opened the house door and now
he stood outside quite courteously, like a doorkeeper, to bid Sally
good-bye.

"Are you not coming to school tomorrow?"

"Yes, i