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 felt she could not wait another moment before carrying the good news down to grandmother, and, moreover, the recollection came to her of the distress the old woman was in when she last saw her.

“No, no, Heidi, what can you be thinking of?” said her grandfather reprovingly. “You can’t be running backwards and forwards like that when you have visitors.”

But grandmamma interfered on Heidi’s behalf. “The child is not so far wrong, Uncle,” she said, “and poor grandmother has too long been deprived of Heidi for our sakes. Let us all go down to her together. I believe my horse is waiting for me and I can ride down from there, and as soon as I get to Dörfli the message shall be sent off. What do you think of my plan, son?”

Herr Sesemann had not yet had time to speak of his traveling plans, so he begged his mother to wait a few moments that he might tell her what he proposed doing.

Herr Sesemann had been arranging that he and his mother should make a little tour in Switzerland, first ascertaining if Clara was in a fit state to go some part of the way with them. But now he would have the full enjoyment of his daughter’s company, and that being so he did not want to miss any of these beautiful days of later summer, but to start at once on the journey that he now looked forward to with such additional pleasure. And so he proposed that they should spend the night in Dörfli and that next day he should come and fetch Clara, then they would all three go down to Ragatz and make that their starting point.

Clara was rather upset at first at the thought of saying goodbye like this to the mountain; she could not help being pleased,