is own ways and
means of getting rid of people."

Kurt was very anxious to get his mother's permission to run about that
same evening by moonlight with his friends, and his mother granted it
willingly.

"I hope you are not going on one of the unfortunate apple-expeditions I
hear so much about," she added.

Kurt quite indignantly assured her that he would never do such a thing.
Lippo was pushing him to one side now. The little boy had made attempts
to reach his mother for several minutes, and he was delighted at his
brother's quick departure.

"Mr. Rector sends you his regards and he wants to know if you wanted to
give him an answer. Here is a letter," said Lippo.

"Where did you bring the letter from?" asked the mother.

"I didn't bring the letter. Lise from the rectory brought it," was
Lippo's information. "But Lise saw me in front of the door and said that
I should take the letter up with me and give it to you, and tell her
whether you wanted to give the Rector an answer or not."

"Oh, that is just the way a message ought to be given," the mother said
with a smile. "Did you hear it, Maezli? I wish you could learn from Lippo
how to do it. Whenever you have one to give, I have such trouble to find
out what really happened and what you have only imagined."

Maezli, whose knitting-ball was at that moment in the most hopelessly
knotted condition, was ever so glad when her mother suggested a new
activity. Quickly flinging her knitting away, she jumped up from her
stool. Then she began to repeat Lippo's speech, word for word: "I did
not bring the letter. Lise from the rectory--"

"No, no, Maezli, I do not mean it that way," the mother interrupted her.
"I mean that the reports you bring me so often sound quite impossible. I
want you to be as careful and exact in them as Lippo."

In the meantime the mother had opened the letter and looked suddenly
quite frightened.

"Tell the girl that I shall go to Mr. Rector myself and that she need
not wait for an answer," was her message entrusted to Lippo.

The thing she had dreaded so much was settled now. The Rector let her
know in his letter that he had realized the time had come for his pupils
to be put into different hands. He wrote that he had decided to
discontinue the studies with them next fall, but that he would be only
too glad to be of assistance to Mrs. Maxa in consulting about Bruno's
further education. He closed with an assurance that he would be the
happier