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 But now Clara interrupted in great distress. “No, no, Fräulein Rottenmeier, you must wait till papa comes; he has written to say that he will soon be home, and then I will tell him everything, and he will say what is to be done with Heidi.”

Fräulein Rottenmeier could not do anything against this superior authority, especially as the father was really expected very shortly. She rose and said with some displeasure, “As you will, Clara, but I too shall have something to say to Herr Sesemann.” And with that she left the room.

Two days now went by without further disturbance. Fräulein Rottenmeier, however, could not recover her equanimity; she was perpetually reminded by Heidi’s presence of the deception that had been played upon her, and it seemed to her that ever since the child had come into the house everything had been topsy-turvy, and she could not bring things into proper order again. Clara had grown much more cheerful; she no longer found time hang heavy during the lesson hours, for Heidi was continually making a diversion of some kind or other. She jumbled all her letters up together and seemed quite unable to learn them, and when the tutor tried to draw her attention to their different shapes, and to help her by showing her that this was like a little horn, or that like a bird’s bill, she would suddenly exclaim in a joyful voice, “That is a goat!” “That is a bird of prey!” For the tutor’s descriptions suggested all kinds of pictures to her mind, but left her still incapable of the alphabet. In the later afternoons Heidi always sat with Clara, and then she would give the latter many and long descriptions of the mountain and of her life upon it, and the burning longing to return would become so overpowering that she always finished