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 cerely she echoed her son’s wish. Then putting her arm round Heidi, who was standing near, she drew the child to her.

“And I have a question to ask you too, dear Heidi. Tell me if there is anything you particularly wish for.”

“Yes, there is,” answered Heidi promptly, looking up delightedly at grandmamma.

“Then tell me at once, dear, what it is.”

“I want to have the bed I slept in at Frankfurt with the high pillows and the thick coverlid, and then grandmother will not have to lie with her head down hill and hardly able to breathe, and she will be warm enough under the coverlid not to have to wear her shawl in bed to prevent her freezing to death.”

In her eagerness to obtain what she had set her heart upon Heidi hardly gave herself time to get out all she had to say, and did not pause for breath till she reached the end of her sentence.

“Dearest child,” answered grandmamma, moved by Heidi’s speech, “what is this you tell me of grandmother! You are right to remind me. In the midst of our own happiness we forget too often that which we ought to remember before all things. When God has shown us some special mercy we should think at once of those who are denied so many things. I will telegraph to Frankfurt at once! Fräulein Rottenmeier shall pack up the bed this very day, and it will be here in two days’ time. God willing, grandmother shall soon be sleeping comfortably upon it.”

Heidi skipped round grandmamma in her glee, and then stopping all of a sudden, said quickly, “I must make haste down and tell grandmother, and she will be in trouble too at my not having been to see her for such a long time.” For she