"Yes," said Rico, "but father told me something else too. You have to go to hotels to eat and to sleep on the way, and it takes money for that."
"But think of the money we own together!" cried Stineli.
Rico frowned and said: "That doesn't amount to anything. I found that out when I wanted to buy a violin."
"Then you had better stay at home and not go, Rico. It is always nice to be at home."
Rico sat lost in thought, his head resting on his arm. Stineli was busy gathering some moss and shaping it into pillows, which she intended to take to the sick ones when she and Rico went home. She thought nothing of Rico's silence until he said: "You say that I can stay at home, but it seems to me exactly as if that were something I did not have. I am sure I don't know where it is."
"O Rico, what are you saying!" cried the astonished Stineli, letting the moss fall unheeded in her lap. "You are at home here, of course. You are always at home where your father and mother—" Here she stopped abruptly as she remembered that Rico had no mother and that his father had not been at home for ever so long, and she shuddered as she thought of his aunt, of whom she had always been afraid. She scarcely knew how to continue, yet it grieved her to see Rico so sadly silent. She impulsively took his hand and said, "I should like to know the name of the lake where it is so beautiful."
Rico meditated a moment. "I don't know it, Stineli. I wonder what it can be and why I can't remember it!"
"Let us try to find out," suggested Stineli; "then, when we get money enough, you will be able to find your way to it. We might ask the teacher about it, and possibly grandmother could tell us."
"I think my father will know, and I will ask him just as soon as he comes back."
They heard the vesper bell ringing in the distance. They rose immediately and ran through the bushes and snow, down the hill and across the meadow. In a few moments they were panting beside the grandmother, who stood at the door waiting for them. She greeted them hastily and motioned for Stineli to pass into the house; then she added to Rico: "I think that you had better go in when you get to the house to-night, instead of waiting awhile outside. It may be better."