And then turning to his wife he said:

"No need to stay up with her to-night, Christian Ann."

"But won't the _boght millish_ be afraid to be left alone?" she asked.

I said I shouldn't, and she kissed me and told me to knock at the wall
if I wanted anything. And then, with her husband's arm about her waist,
the good soul left me to myself.

I don't know how I knew, but I did know that that house was a home of
love. I don't know how I knew, but I did know, that that sweet woman,
who had been the daughter of a well-to-do man, had chosen the doctor out
of all the men in the world when he was only a medical student fresh
from Germany or Switzerland. I don't know how I knew, but I did know,
that leaving father and mother and a sheltered home she had followed her
young husband when he first came to Ellan without friends or
connections, and though poor then and poor still, she had never
regretted it. I don't know how I knew, but I did know, that all this was
the opposite of what had happened to my own dear mother, who having
everything yet had nothing, while this good creature having nothing yet
had all.

SEVENTH CHAPTER

When I awoke next morning the sun was shining, and, after my hair had
been brushed smooth over my forehead, I was sitting up in bed, eating
for breakfast the smallest of bantam eggs with the smallest of silver
spoons, when the door opened with a bang and a small figure tumbled into
my room.

It was a boy, two years older than myself. He wore a grey Norfolk jacket
and knickerbockers, but the peculiarity of his dress was a white felt
hat of enormous size, which, being soiled and turned down in the brim,
and having a hole in the crown with a crop of his brown hair sticking
through it, gave him the appearance of a damaged mushroom.

Except that on entering he tipped up his head so that I saw his face,
which was far from beautiful and yet had two big blue eyes--as blue as
the bluest sea--he took no notice of my presence, but tossed a
somersault in the middle of the floor, screwed his legs over the back of
a chair, vaulted over a table and finally stood on his hands with his
legs against the wall opposite to my bed, and his inverted countenance
close to the carpet.

In this position, in which he was clearly making a point of remaining as
long as possible, while his face grew very red, we held our first
conversation. I had hitherto sat propped up as quiet as a mouse, but now
I said:

"Little