“That is just the thing I cannot read,” Martha answered. “I only know that it comes from town, but I cannot guess who could possibly write to me from there.”
Cornelli began to read the letter aloud. It was an inquiry as to whether the spare room had yet been taken, and if Mrs. Wolf could take care of a boy of twelve years for a few weeks. He did not need special care, as he was not exactly ill; but the boy undoubtedly was not very strong. Good air and fresh milk were the chief things he needed. If no refusal came, the boy would arrive in the middle of July. It was signed: Nika Halm, rector’s widow.
“Oh, how easily you read. It seems to go all of itself,” said Martha admiringly, when Cornelli had finished. “I never could have made it out so well. Just think how proud I can be that a rector’s wife will bring her son to me. Oh, I’ll take the best care of him, and I must ask Matthew to let him have some milk from the cows every morning and evening. Isn’t it too bad it is not a girl; then you would have a playmate. But you will entertain each other just the same. Are you not a little bit glad that he is coming?”
“No, not a bit,” Cornelli returned curtly. “I know quite well that he won’t have anything to do with me, and I know why, too. I do not care whether it is a boy or a girl. I don’t want him.”
“But Cornelli, you never used to be that way. You used to be so friendly and bright with everybody. What has happened to you?” asked Martha, quite grieved. “You do not look about you with bright eyes and your hair hangs too low on your face. Can’t I push it back a little?”
Martha, fetching a comb, was going to touch Cornelli’s hair, when Cornelli hindered her by crying out: “No, Martha, leave it! It has to stay that way all my life.”
“Oh, no, I won’t believe that. Why should your face be half covered up? One can hardly recognize you,” Martha said regretfully. “What do the ladies say about it?”
“Miss Dorner says that I am the most obstinate being in the whole world, and that no one can ever set me right,” was Cornelli’s truthful information. Then she added: “She says that no child on earth looks as ugly as I do and that nobody in the world will ever like me. I know that it is true, and I only wish nobody were coming to you; then I could always be alone with you.”
“Cornelli, I am quite sure that you would do right in obeying the ladies,” said Martha. “If you did what they say, they would love you as well as everybody else does.”
“No, no, Martha, you don’t know how it is,” Cornelli said, quite frightened. “I’ll do everything they say, but I can never push my hair away, for then it would be worse still and everybody could see it.”