you for a present. We
send our love to you all a thousand times, and beg you to give it
to our father and mother and the little boys.

Fani sends his special love to you.

Your true friend,

ELSLI.

When the letter was finished, there came a burst of shouting and
hand-clapping that seemed as if it would never stop. Such good news for
the children! What a prospect of delights! The mother and aunt
sympathized in their pleasure; but they took the greatest satisfaction
in the thought that their anxiety for Fani was forever relieved, and
that God had led the two children whose welfare lay so near their
hearts, by such unlooked-for ways, into a happy and hopeful life.

Which of the four children was most pleased with the prospect of the
visit to the villa on the Rhine, it would be impossible to say. They
could talk of nothing else, and think of nothing else. Oscar saw in
imagination whole armies of Swiss collected there, and united in one
fraternal society by his efforts, with Fani's help. He began at once to
employ every spare moment in searching for a motto for the promised
banner. Emma was in a condition of almost feverish joy. Fani was really
on the road to become a painter, and her long-cherished wish was being
accomplished. Now that Mrs. Stanhope was evidently so fond of him,
surely everything would be done for his improvement. But she could
hardly wait for the time to come for their visit, for every day she had
some new idea for his future that she longed to tell him. Fred had his
hands full of preparations. He looked forward to making such an increase
of his collections that he was afraid he should not have room to contain
them all. He induced his aunt to promise him all the useless boxes in
the house, and all winter long he stored them away in his room in
readiness for the expected occupants.

Little Rikli enjoyed the anticipation of the summer with pure delight.
She was never so happy as when with Fred, yet her pleasure in being with
him had been always mixed with fright; but she was sure that under the
protection of good Aunt Clarissa there would be no danger that frogs or
beetles should be allowed to annoy her, or that any unpleasant creatures
would crawl out upon her under the shady lindens by the river.

Fani and Elsli grew better and happier every day; they had but one
unsatisfied wish--that the summer would come; so that they might welcome
their dear old friends to their n