Then they laughed—the kind lady, the little girl, and even his mother; but tears rose to his eyes with shame; he struggled and kicked, so that the lady had to let him glide down from her lap, and his mother said, reproachfully,
“You are naughty, Paul.”
But he went behind the arbor and cried, until the little girl came to him and said:
“Oh dear, you must not cry. God does not like naughty children.” Then he was ashamed again, and rubbed his eyes with his hands till they were dry.
“And now I will show you the sundial,” continued the child.
“Oh yes, and the glass balls,” he said.
“They were broken a long time ago,” she replied; “a stone I threw flew by accident into one of them, and the other was blown down by a storm.” And then she showed him the spots where they had stood.
“And this is the sundial,” she went on.
“Where?” he asked, looking round, wonderingly.
They were standing before a gray, unpretending post, on which was fastened a sort of wooden plate. The child laughed, and said that this was the sundial.