.

Nono began at once to plan about the savings-bank for Alma, and was
much in deep consultation with Pelle. In the course of their
conversations on the subject, Nono heard from the old man how the
golden house came to be so very different from the usual red cottages
of Sweden. He felt it was like Karin not to have told him the story.
She had served as maid in her youth to an eccentric old lady, with whom
she had lived until she was married. When her former mistress was near
her end, and was gloomily looking forward to death, some words of
simple faith and hope she had once heard from Karin came now to her
mind like a new revelation, and the glad truths took deep root in her
troubled heart. An abounding gratitude to Karin at once took
possession of the dying woman, and she added an item to her will
providing that Karin, who was struggling along with her young family
about her, should have a bit of land of her own, and a cottage built
upon it, like those the testator remembered in the part of Sweden where
she had lived in her childhood. It should all be one great room up to
the roof, but very comfortable and convenient. It must not, though, be
red like any other cottage, but yellow at first, and always yellow; for
Karin had been as good as gold to her mistress, and better. So this
was the story of "the golden house," as the Italian had named it--a
name it had borne ever since.

Bright yellow, and complete in all its appointments, was the little
house that Nono at last took to Alma. If not gold itself, something
golden, small and round, fell into Nono's hands as Alma received it.
"Now, Nono," she said, "that is your gift from your godmother, for I am
a kind of a godmother to you. It may be the last present you will have
from me. I am going to be very saving now, and lay up all the money I
can."

Nono felt as if common Swedish words were hardly fit to express his
thankfulness, so he astonished Alma by dropping on one knee and kissing
her hand, as he had seen "a courtier saluting a queen" in a "history
book" he studied at school.

Old Pelle, meanwhile, was looking on with the sharp twinkle in his eye
with which he watched many of Alma's proceedings. She knew he had been
consulting-architect as to the little cottage, but she could not help
calling on him now to admire it, saying, "Is it not a beauty, and just
like Karin's home?"

Pelle leaned on his rake as he stood, and answered, "It is like it, and
it is