Amongst so many favourites it was hard to say which was first, but perhaps it was the sketch of Czar’s grave; for that always elicited the story of the terrible thunder-storm amongst the mountains, to which the sisters would listen with the most breathless interest. The drawings of the snow-peaks and the Silent Watchers had a great fascination also, and Squib would tell the legends of the peasantry about the Bergmännlein and the Seligen Fräulein. But at the end he would always add,—
“But that’s all make-up, you know. It isn’t true. It’s not like the stories Herr Adler tells.”
As for Herr Adler’s stories, they were a perfect mine of wealth to the children. When for any reason Squib failed to remember any fresh adventure of his own to relate, Hilda or Hulda would quickly turn the pages till they came to the one which represented Herr Adler in his long coat pointing something out to Squib with the end of his stick, and then they would all cry out in a breath,—
“Never mind, Squib; tell us one of Herr Adler’s stories. His are the nicest after all!”
So Herr Adler became a household word in that nursery, and in future, if Squib caught himself in the act of being slovenly, selfish, disobedient, or wasteful, he would pull himself up shortly on remembering how he had been taught always to give his best, always to try after the highest, to make his life a beautiful thing, and to find everything round him beautiful, as no one can ever do who is not struggling with his faults, and seeking to follow in the footsteps of One who pleased not Himself.
Then he soon found that when there was discord in the nursery or schoolroom, and voices were raised in grumbling, or fault-finding, or scolding, and he suddenly said,—“I don’t know what Herr Adler would say to us if he saw us now!” it generally produced a sudden lull, and they would all look at each other and begin to wonder how the quarrel had commenced.
“I wish Herr Adler would come and see us some day,” said Philippa once, when there had been a good many breezes through the house, and the children had at last made peace, and agreed that there had been nothing to quarrel about, but that they were just naughty and silly; “I think he would make us all good.”
Squib was squatting on the window-seat looking out over the park, and wondering why he was cross with his sisters, of whom he was so fond, when he had hardly ever felt cross all the time he had been in Switzerland.
“He wouldn’t like you to say that,” he answered quickly.
“Why not? I thought you said he always did make you feel good.”