"Oh! that is easy enough," said Stineli. "You have to go farther and farther, that is all; and at the end you will surely get there."
"But my father told me something else. Do you know, Stineli, when you are travelling and stop at an inn, and eat something and sleep there, then there is something to pay, and you must have money for that."
"Oh! we have lots of money," cried Stineli triumphantly. But her companion was not triumphant.
"That is exactly as good as nothing. I know that by the affair of the fiddle," he said sadly.
"Then it will be better for you to stay at home, Rico. Look! it is beautiful here at home, I am sure."
The lad sat thoughtfully silent for a long time, leaning his head on his hand, and his eyebrows brought in a close line down over his eyes. At last he turned again to Stineli, who had been gathering the soft green moss that grew around the spot where they were lying, and of which she made a tiny bed with two pillows and a coverlet. She meant to carry them home to the sick Urschli.
"You say I had better stay at home, Stineli; but, do you know, it is just as if I did not know where my home really is."
"Oh, dear me! what do you mean?" cried the girl; and in her surprise she threw away a whole handful of moss. Your home is here, of course. It is always home where father and mother"—She stopped suddenly. Rico had no mother, and his father had been away now for a very long time; and the cousin? Stineli never went near that cousin, who had never spoken one pleasant word to her. The child did not know what to say, but it was not natural to her to remain long in uncertainty. Rico had already fallen into one of his reveries, when she grasped him by the arm, and said,—
"I should just like to know something; that is, the name of the lake where it is so lovely."
Rico pondered. "I do not know," he said; and felt very much surprised himself as he spoke.