The two others who were ill shouted, "No, no, Stineli, we want you!"
The father said, "I should like to have you go to the barn and take a look at the goat first."
"Hush, everybody!" broke in the grandmother. "Stineli shall go in peace. I will look after these things myself. Remember, dear, that when the vesper bell rings, you are to come home like good children." The grandmother knew that there would be two of them.
Stineli flew away like a bird for whom the door of its cage had been opened, and went directly to Rico, who was waiting as usual. The sun was shining pleasantly, and the heaven was an unbroken blue above them as they crossed the meadow to reach the hill beyond. They still found patches of snow in the shaded places, until they got up where the whole surface had been exposed to the sun; from here they could see the waves beating steadily against the rocks on the shore. They searched for a dry place on a cliff directly over the water, and here they sat down. The wind was blowing a sharp gale at this height; it whistled in their ears and swayed the woods above them like a living mass of green.
"Oh, see, Rico, how beautiful it is here!" exclaimed Stineli as she looked about. "I am so glad that spring has come again. See how the water sparkles in the sunlight. There really cannot be a prettier lake than this one."
"I should say there is!" exclaimed Rico. "You ought to see the one I mean! No such black fir trees with needles grow by my lake. We have shining green leaves and large red flowers there. The hills are not so high and black, nor so near, but show their violet colors from a distance. The sky and water are all a golden glow, and there is such a warm, fragrant air that one can always sit on the shore without being cold. The wind never blows like this, and there is no snow to cover one's shoes as ours are covered now."
This description convinced Stineli that Rico was not speaking of a place that he had simply dreamed about, so she said half sadly: "Perhaps you can go there sometime and see it again. Do you know the way?"
"No," answered Rico, "but I know that you have to go up the Maloja. I have been as far as that with my father, and he showed me the road that leads ever and ever so far down toward the lake. It is such a long way that you could hardly get there."
"It would be easy enough," remarked Stineli. "All you have to do is just to keep right on going farther and farther and at last you must get there."