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 have to make a cross face, for I know that everybody thinks how horrid I look. I never can be happy any more, because I have to think all the time about that terrible thing on my head, and that it is getting worse. And I can’t help it and can do nothing. You don’t know how it is. As long as I live I have to be that way, and everybody will hate me. You could not laugh any more, either, if you were like that.”

“You should try to think of quite different things and then you would forget it. Later on it would probably seem quite different to you. You keep on thinking about it all the time and so you believe in it more and more. Get it out of your head, then it will be sure to get better,” said Dino, who could not quite understand it. Come, I’ll tell you a story that will change your thoughts. Once upon a time there was an old copper pan—— See, you have laughed already!”

“Oh, that will be a fine kind of story—about an old copper pan!” Cornelli said.

“It certainly is a fine story,” Dino assured her; “just listen: She had a step-brother who