"Surely!" the woman answered. "We expect to leave the house on Monday."
Dora slipped into her little room and sat down on her bed. She was completely cast down by the thought of leaving without having even once met the children in the lovely garden. She thought how dreary it would be to go back to Karlsruhe, where she would have to sew shirts again and could no longer watch the merry life of the jolly children.
From sheer grief, Dora's eyes were so cast down that she could not see her five bright stars gleaming down to her. They seemed to be calling, "Dora, Dora! Have you forgotten your father's words completely?"
[CHAPTER VI]
A TERRIBLE DEED
THE weather Sunday was very fair and the garden lay peaceful and quiet in the sunlight. Nothing could be heard except the occasional thump of a falling apple, which had begun to ripen. The parents had gone to church with Paula and Miss Hanenwinkel and Jul and Hun sat peacefully before a great bowl of hazelnuts, discussing the different ways in which the nutcracker could open nuts. Willi and Lili, after the instructive experience of the day before, had come back to their ark with the wooden men and ladies and sat in the schoolroom where they were allowed to spread their toys over the large table. Rolf had run to a lonely little summerhouse in a distant corner of the garden in order to be undisturbed at different studies he was interested in.
When the deluge, which had to proceed this time without any water, had lasted a long time, and the dove had returned with the olive branch, Lili grew tired of the game and cast about for something new.
"Come down stairs, Willi," she proposed. "Let's look at Rolf's bow and arrow. He put it in the hall yesterday."
Willi, quite ready for a change of occupation, hastened downstairs after his twin sister, who knew the exact spot where Rolf had put the bow and the quiver full of feathered arrows.
"It must be great fun to shoot with it," said Lili. "I watched Rolf doing it. You pull the string back and lay the arrow on it; then you let go of the string and the arrow flies away. Let's try it, Willi."