"Buy a book from the cantor with the money you earned to-day in the parade," suggested Mrs. Bach hopefully.
Sebastian shook his head. "I can't," he explained, "because I gave half of it to Georg Erdmann, so that he might go to Gotha to visit his grandmother, and I paid the rest to a gardener for a present that I brought home yesterday for you."
Throwing open the door of his closet, Sebastian stepped inside, and quickly emerged, bearing in his arms a tiny rose-tree in full bloom.
"I got it for your New Year's gift, and meant to put it on the dinner table, but the trouble with Christoff made me forget all about it."
"Oh, oh, it is a beautiful present, and so fragrant, so fragrant! But, Bübchen," she said in a fondly chiding tone, "you should not have spent your pennies for me; I have so much and you so little."
"I have you, and—and Christoff, and music," returned Sebastian soberly.
"You are truly a man, and surely a baby," said Mrs. Bach, laughing merrily. At sound of a voice from below stairs she grew instantly serious.
"Christoff is calling me, and I must go down. You promise, Sebastian, never to play out of his book again?"
The boy nodded quickly.
"I promise," he said.