In the meanwhile Mrs. Lesa with her two children mounted the hill, the conversation continuing without interruption.
"Can you believe it, mother?" the lad said. "The child isn't much taller than Stefeli. When we passed Mrs. Troll's house last evening, she stood at the front door, and she went inside and suddenly we heard lovely music through the open window. Her brother still sat outside reading a book, so I asked what it was and he said, 'Alida is playing the piano.' Think of it, such a little girl! I would have liked to have listened, but Stefeli said we must go on home for it was getting late."
"And so it was," asserted Stefeli. "I would have been glad to stay too, but we had to get back home. Even then father was already at the table when we arrived. I heard that the boy's name is Hugo, and a crooked lady lives with them, for I heard Alida say to her brother, 'Now I must go in; otherwise the Fraulein will fetch me in herself and everything will be all crooked.'"
"No, no, Stefeli," said her mother. "She meant that everything might go crooked with her if she did not obey. Aren't the children's parents with them?"
"I'm not sure. What do you think, Vinzi?" asked Stefeli, turning toward her brother.
"What are you staring at? And why don't you answer your sister?" asked his mother.
"Listen, mother, listen!" he said softly. "Don't you hear that lovely sound?"
His mother paused. The wind wafted the sound of the evening bell from the valley below and as the echoes died away over the hills new notes rose louder and clearer. The mother's eyes rested on him in mingled anxiety and surprise, as he listened intently in an effort to catch just one more note.
"Vinzi, will you listen now to what I say?" asked Stefeli, who showed no surprise at all at her brother's manner.
"Yes," he answered as though waking out of a dream.