first to pack up his papers,
was still scribbling away after Mea had laid hers away. Looking over his
shoulder into the note-book, she exclaimed, "He is writing some verses
again! Who is the subject of your song, Kurt?"

"I'll read it to you, then you can guess yourself," said the boy. "The
first verse is already written somewhere else. Now listen to the
second."

She stares about with stately mien:
"O ho, just look at me!
If I am not acknowledged queen,
I surely ought to be."

Her friend agrees with patient air
And fastens up her shoes.
Then queenie thinks: That's only fair,
She couldn't well refuse.

But if the friend should try to show
The queen her faults, look out!
She'd break the friendship at a blow
And straightway turn about.

Mea had been obliged to laugh a little at first at the description of the
humble behaviour which did not seem to describe her very well. Finally,
however, sad memories rose up in her.

"Do you know, mother," she cried out excitedly, "it is not the worst that
she shows me her back, but that one can't ever agree with her. Every
time I find anything pleasant and good, she says the opposite, and when I
say that something is wrong and horrid, she won't be of my opinion
either. It is so hard to keep her friendship because we always seem to
quarrel when I haven't the slightest desire to."

"Just let her go. She is the same as her brothers," said Bruno. "I
never want their friendship again, and I wish I might never have anything
more to do with them."

"It is better to give them things, the way you did to-day," Kurt
remarked.

"I can understand Mea," said the mother. "As soon as we came here she
tried to get Elvira's friendship. She longs for friendship more than you
do."

"Oh, mother, I have six or eight friends here, that is not so bad," Kurt
declared.

"I couldn't say much for any of them," Bruno said quickly.

"It must hurt Mea," the mother continued, "that Elvira does not seem to
be capable of friendship. You only act right in telling her what you
consider wrong, Mea. If you show your attachment to her and try not to
be hurt by little differences of opinion, your friendship might gradually
improve."

As Lippo and Maezli felt that the time for the general game had come, they
came up to their mother to declare their wish. Soon everybody was
merrily playing.

It happened to-day, as it did every day, that the clock pointed much too
soon