well!"

"I'm so glad she is coming," cried the lad, and his face glowed with
pleasure. "There is no one that I can talk with about being a painter as
I can with her. She understands just how I feel, and is as much
interested in it as I am myself."

"Are you still bent on being an artist?" asked Elsli.

"Yes, indeed, more and more. Every day, and after every drawing lesson,
I care about it more than ever before. I don't say anything about it,
because I see that Mrs. Stanhope doesn't like the idea. You see, Elsli,
she means to keep us with her all our lives, just as if we were her own
children. I'm sure of it, from a great many things that she has said. We
can stay here just as long as we don't do anything to displease her, and
of course we sha'n't do that. Several times when I've said that I should
like to be a painter, Mrs. Stanhope has said that it was a very good
profession for persons who had no home, and were obliged to live alone,
and could travel as much as they pleased in foreign countries. She said
I might paint at Rosemount as much as I chose, but that I must not make
it my business, because then I should have to go away to live. So you
see that she is quite decided that we are to stay here."

Elsli shook her head.

"I don't know, Fani. It seems to me that we don't belong here in this
beautiful house. Don't you feel so too, Fani? Somehow as if we were only
here on a visit, and that to-morrow we might be going away again."

"There you are again with the old story," said Fani, rather vexed, for
this doubt was very distasteful to him.

The time which they had to spend in the garden was now over, and hand in
hand they passed back up the white pebbly path, and by the sweet-scented
rose-beds, and entered the hall, which stood with wide-open doors on the
garden side.

CHAPTER II.

A JOURNEY.

Great was the excitement in the doctor's house at Buchberg. July had
come at last, and the long-looked-for journey was at hand. Only one more
day! The big trunk was packed and locked and placed in the lower hall,
ready to go. Now there were only the hand-bags and satchels to be filled
with the last needful articles. This task was not so easy as one might
expect, however. On the contrary, mother and aunty found it the most
difficult part of the whole. For the three older children had received
permission to choose each the things which he wanted most to fill up his
own bag, with the express understanding that th