Page:Heidi - Spyri - 1922.djvu/267

 “God bless you, child! what have you got to thank me for?” asked the doctor, smiling.

“For being at home again with grandfather,” the child explained.

The doctor’s face brightened as if a sudden ray of sunshine had passed across it; he had not expected such a reception as this. Lost in the sense of his loneliness he had climbed the mountain without heeding how beautiful it was on every side, and how more and more beautiful it became the higher he got. He had quite thought that Heidi would have forgotten him; she had seen so little of him, and he had felt rather like one bearing a message of disappointment, anticipating no great show of favor, coming as he did without the expected friends. But instead, here was Heidi, her eyes dancing for joy, and full of gratitude and affection, clinging to the arm of her kind friend.

He took her by the hand with fatherly tenderness. “Take me now to your grandfather, Heidi, and show me where you live.”

But Heidi still remained standing, looking down the path with a questioning gaze. “Where are Clara and grandmother?” she asked.

“Ah, now I have to tell you something which you will be as sorry about as I am,” answered the doctor. “You see, Heidi, I have come alone. Clara was very ill and could not travel, and so the grandmother stayed behind too. But next spring, when the days grow warm and long again, they are coming here for certain.”

Heidi was greatly concerned; she could not at first bring herself to believe that what she had for so long been picturing to