“Little Herr, I thought you would come to me. I tried to get to our knoll, but I couldn’t.”
“Why couldn’t you?” asked Squib with solicitude.
“I felt so queer, and all my breath went away. I had to sit down; but I thought if you came you would come down. I don’t seem to have any room to breathe if I go uphill.”
“Poor Seppi!” said Squib pitifully; “does it hurt much?”
“Oh no! I don’t have any pain. And I’m used to it at night. Generally I am pretty comfortable by day. Little Herr, we had a visit yesterday from a friend of father’s.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, and he says father is rather disturbed, because he has heard that somebody has been talking about buying the piece of ground he wants so much for the hotel he has been thinking of so long. He has heard that a gentleman has been inquiring about it.”
Squib’s face beamed all over.
“That’s my father,” he said in an important whisper. “My father has such good ideas. He set somebody to ask about the land before he came back here. I suppose that is what your father has heard of. But he need not really mind; for if my father buys the bit of land, he will give it to your father, I know.”
“O little Herr! It seems too good to be true!”