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Page 47
"I don't mean that," said Oscar; "Fani showed me that this morning. I
mean from the end of the meadow-land across the high-road there."
Elsli was quite sure that Mrs. Stanhope owned nothing beyond the
high-road.
"Do you see that little hill over there?" said Oscar, pointing in that
direction. "There's a wind-mill up there; see how finely the big wings
go turning round in the wind, like huge banners waving for a festival,
and inviting people from all sides to come and rejoice together. All
the people who are to come to our celebration might camp out around the
foot of that hill, and the speaker could stand up above there on that
platform, and those huge flags would wave to and fro behind him and show
where the festival was taking place, to all the neighboring country!"
Oscar uttered these words in such a tone of enthusiasm that his
companion caught the infection; but she hesitated.
"Yes, it would be fine," she said; "but don't you think we should have
to ask the miller's leave?"
Oscar thought this would not be at all necessary, as the meeting would
do no harm to the mill or to the grass, which was evidently very short.
He would go over and inspect the place himself.
"How is the banner getting on, Elsli?" he asked presently.
"Oh, I forgot it entirely!" said the girl, somewhat startled. "It is
all ready, and I meant to put it in your bedroom to welcome you. You
see, Oscar, I finished it; because Aunt Clarissa said that it would be
prettier without a motto, if I put a wreath of Alpine roses on the Swiss
flag, and so I embroidered one upon it."
But this did not suit Oscar at all; he wished to have his motto, his
verses, over which he had spent so much trouble and had had so many
discussions. He had no mind to drop it now; and he looked as if he had
suffered a severe loss. Elsli saw his disappointment, and she hastened
to propose a remedy. Why not put the motto on the other side of the
banner? Oscar could print the verse in large letters on a piece of
paper, and she would fasten it upon the banner, on the side opposite the
Alpine roses. That was a clever thought. Oscar's spirits rose again,
and the banner would be really in the end far handsomer than he had
expected.
"You are the smartest girl I know, Elsli," cried the lad; and this
unexpected praise brought the color into Elsli's cheeks, for she was
little accustomed to notice, much less to commendation.
"How many Swiss have you found and invited to join our society?"
continued Oscar.
Elsli confessed that she had discovered but one; the baker's boy who
brought fresh bread to the house every day; and she could not induce him
to join the society. "I am very sorry," she said, "that I could not do
as you asked me; but we are not allowed to go into the kitchen and talk
to the people that come there."
But Oscar was well satisfied. He only wanted to know at what time and
from which direction the baker's boy came every morning; and this Elsli
told him. "All right!" he said; "I can help myself, now."
Meanwhile, Fani and Emma were walking up and down by the river-side,
talking with constantly increasing eagerness. Emma had never been so
excited; she had had a tremendous surprise. Since Fani had left home,
she had never lost sight of her hope that he would become a great
artist. He had never mentioned the subject in his letters, and it had
been more and more evident that Mrs. Stanhope meant to educate the two
children, as she would have done her own, in various branches, without
any view to a special training for a life-work. Emma feared that Fani
would lose his ambition to be an artist, and she set herself to work to
counteract this danger. She had heard of a book called the "Lives of
Celebrated Painters," and she did not rest till her aunt promised to
procure it for her at Christmas; for she thought it would inspire Fani
with fresh enthusiasm to learn how artists had become great and
celebrated. She now brought the book with her, and told Fani about it,
in the hope that it would serve as a spur to arouse his dormant
energies. What was her astonishment when Fani pushed the book away, and
broke out passionately:--
"No, no; I will not read it! I will try not to think of it at all! You
see, Emma, I have a drawing lesson every day; only now of course I do
not, while you are here on a visit. And the more I draw, the more I want
to; I can do much better than I used to, and the teacher has told me
several times that I can certainly learn to be an artist."
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