“Come here, children,” cried the man, at their entrance. He had a rough, harsh voice. “Do you not know me?”
The children looked at him with open eyes. Did there awake in them the recollection of their father’s voice? The man continued, “I am your father’s brother. Come here, Lisbeth! And you, also, Dami.”
“I am not Lisbeth; my name is Amrie,” said the young girl, and wept. She gave her uncle no hand; a feeling of estrangement made her tremble, because her uncle had called her by a false name. How could there be any true dependence on him, when he had forgotten her name?
“If you are my uncle, why did you not know my name?” she asked many times.
“Thou art a stupid child; go immediately and give him thy hand,” ordered Farmer Rodel; then he added half aloud to the stranger, “She is a strange child; Brown Mariann has put wonderful things into her head, and you know that all is not right with her.”
Amrie looked deeply wounded, and tremblingly gave the uncle her hand. Dami had already done it, and now asked, “Uncle, have you brought us any thing?”
“I had not much to bring. I bring myself—and you will go home with me. Do you know, Amrie, it is not right that you will not know your uncle. You have no one else in the whole world. Whom have you beside? Come, think better of it; sit near me—still nearer; do you see that Dami is much more sensible? He looks more like our family—but you belong to us also.”
A maid came and brought in some garments. “These are thy brother’s clothes,” said Rodel to the stranger; and turning to Amrie he said,—“Do you see, these are thy father’s clothes; we will take them, and you also, will go first to Fluorn, and then over the brook.”
Amrie touched, tenderly and tremblingly, first the coat of her father, and then his blue striped waistcoat. The uncle held the clothes up, and pointing to the worn elbows, said to Farmer Rodel,—“They are not worth much; I don’t know whether I could wear them over there in America without being laughed at.”
Amrie seized convulsively the sleeve of the coat. That they should say the dress of her father was of little value; that, which she had thought of inestimable worth; and that this dress should be worn in America, and there laughed at, confused and confounded all her ideas, especially those about America.