Miss Falbe remained standing on the threshold and exchanged a look with Puppelena, which was not very friendly, to say the least. Then she said quietly, and without heeding the others: “Come, Elsie; you must not stay here.”
Elsie arose, shame-faced, and went with her. There was no one in “the gang” who dared grumble. When they came to Miss Falbe’s door she took Loppen about the waist and said:
“Dear Elsie, promise me that you will never go up there again. You are now a grown girl; you must understand that it will not do for you to be with bad men.”
Elsie grew red as blood and promised, with tears, that she would never go up to “the gang” again. And when she was by herself, down in her own little bed-room, she repeated her promise as she undressed herself.
Miss Falbe was right; they were indeed bad men—those up in the attic. It was better to attend Madam Speckbom’s patients, or sit with Miss Falbe and read of an evening.
But before she went to bed she had to look after her roses in the window, for Elsie loved roses.
She took care of all Madam Speckbom’s flowers, and Madam had flowers in all her windows. But Elsie took the best care of the roses; and when they were about to bloom, she got permission to keep them in her own room, for the morning sun shone there.
There were three or four half blossomed out, and she inhaled the delicate, fresh fragrance while she leaned over them. And with that fragrance from her roses, came visions of all sorts of wonderful things; elegant ladies and gentlemen, lights, music, carriages and glossy horses, and music again, which she heard trembling far in the distance.
And when she crept into bed she did not think of Madam Speckbom’s patients or of Miss Falbe’s quiet room; but she slept in the midst of roses and music and dreams of white satin with swan’s-down about the shoulders. She was seventeen years old.