; there is always
something to ask, and you understand that, and don't expect us to
stop asking just because you have to say no sometimes. Now, this
whole trouble comes from this; for when I asked Fani to ask Aunt
Clarissa to give me some twenty or thirty old boxes to keep my
specimens in, he said it was not proper to ask for so many things,
and I could pack them in paper. Just think of that! To wrap living
creatures up in paper! Of course Fani doesn't understand anything
about such things.

Now what I want you to do, dear aunty, is to write in your next
letter that we are to come home; it is high time. It is four weeks
since we came, and that is long enough to be away from home; for
home is the best place in the whole world. There are plenty of
boxes to be had there, and everything that you want, and there are
nice places for things, and there isn't such danger of accidents.
And if anything does go wrong, you are there, aunty, and in a
minute it is set right again. Do write and say that we may leave
here on Saturday, and then on Sunday we shall be at home again. How
glad we shall be! Good-bye, dear aunty; your ever-loving nephew,

FRED.

The evening came; lovely and bright. Under the three oaks were assembled
the two Fink boys, the baker's son from Lucerne, the shoemaker's
apprentice from Uri, the hotel porter from Schwyz, and Feklitus! Oscar
stood in the midst with his banner, and looked sharply in every
direction, for it was almost six o'clock and neither Fred nor Fani was
in sight. The clock struck; five, ten minutes passed, and they did not
come.

Oscar felt that it was useless to wait longer. Fred did not mean to
come; he had seen that in the morning; but Fani, where was he? As he
asked himself this question, Oscar raised his fist threateningly in the
air and muttered to himself:--

"Oh, that Emma! that Xanthippe!"

His original intention had been to march to the windmill to the music of
fife and drum, flute and harmonicon, but he had given up part of this
plan; chiefly, he said to himself, on account of his father's advice not
to make any disturbance in a strange place; but also because he could
not get a drum, and Feklitus would not play the flute.

Now it was time to move, and the procession began to march. The lad from
Lucerne went first, playing briskly upon the harmonicon; the others
followed two and two,