"It is won," said the doctor in great delight to the women, who, deeply moved, were looking on at the mother and boy.
Then the doctor opened the door of the next room and beckoned Elsbeth to go in there with Toni. He thought it would be good for both to be alone for a while. In there after a while Toni began to talk quite naturally with his mother and asked her:
"Are we going home, Mother, to the stone hut? Shan't I have to go up on the mountain any more?"
And she quieted him and said she would now take him right home, and they would stay there together. Soon all Toni's thoughts came back again quite clearly, and after a while he said:
"But I must earn something, Mother."
"Don't trouble about that now," said Elsbeth quietly; "the dear Lord will show a way when it is time."
Then they began to talk about the goat, how pretty and fat she had grown, and Toni gradually became quite lively.
After an hour the doctor brought them both into the living-room back to the ladies. Toni was entirely changed, his eyes had now an earnest but quite different expression. The lady from Geneva was indescribably delighted. She sat down beside him at once, and he had to tell her where he had been to school and what he had liked to study.
But the doctor beckoned to Elsbeth to come to him.
"Listen, my good woman," he began, "the words which you repeated made a deep, penetrating impression on the boy's heart. Did he know the hymn already?"