"

"When you can get up and go downstairs you will be happier still. I know
how much you will enjoy meeting the whole family," said Salo. "Then you
will feel as if you were in a real home that belongs to you."

"It is such a shame that you have to go," Leonore sighed, but this time
the tears did not come quite so urgently. How things had changed since
yesterday--how different it was now to stay behind!

At this moment Mrs. Maxa entered the room.

She had left it as she wanted to give brother and sister an opportunity
to see each other alone, but the time had come for Salo to depart, and he
was obliged to leave his sister. To-day it seemed harder for him to go
away than leave Leonore behind.

"I can't even say that I wish you to come soon. I have to hope that you
can remain here a long while," he said cheerily, while Leonore was
smiling bravely. Uncle Philip, ready for the journey, stood beside the
carriage. All the children ran towards Salo as soon as he appeared, and
when he said good-bye, he was treated like a friend of the family of many
years' standing. Each of the children showed his grief in a special
manner. Maezli cried loudly over and over again, "Oh, Salo, please come
soon again, please come soon again."

When the carriage was rolling away and the handkerchiefs that fluttered
him last greetings were all Salo could see from the distance, he rapidly
brushed away a few tears. He had never felt so thoroughly at home
anywhere in the world before. How happy he had been! The thought of
going far away and possibly never coming back gave him a little pang of
grief.

When the children returned at noon from school they were still full of
their vivid impression of Salo's sudden appearance and departure. They
were all anxious to tell their mother about it, because they knew that
they could always count on her lively sympathy. One or the other of the
children kept forgetting that the mother must not be sought and would
absent-mindedly make an attempt to go upstairs, but they were always met
by unexpected resistance. Lippo on his arrival home from school had
posted himself there to see that his mother's orders were strictly kept.
He also had missed her desperately, but he had nevertheless remembered
her injunctions and was quite certain that the others might forget and
act contrary to her orders. Placing himself on the first step, he would
hold any of his brothers or sisters with both hands when they came
towards him