“Listen, mother, listen!” Vinzi replied in a low voice. “Can you hear those beautiful sounds?”
The mother stood still. The wind was wafting up the sounds of an evening bell from the valley, which, as they reached the heights, faded away only to rise more loudly from far below. The wind must have come straight from that direction, for one could hear them very plainly. Now the tones had died away.
The mother’s glance rested on the boy with a mingled look of anxiety and surprise, while he was lost in listening. She remained quiet a while longer for Vinzi had not yet moved. He still seemed to listen eagerly to something he heard from far away, despite the fact that no more sounds reached her ear.
“Vinzi, can you hear us again now?” Stefeli asked, not in the least surprised at her brother’s ways.
“Yes,” he responded as if awakening from a dream.
“Is the lady who lives with Alida and Hugo really crooked?” asked Stefeli, for she was anxious to have that question cleared up.
“Yes, perhaps,” the brother replied with a slightly abstracted air.
But Stefeli did not tolerate such uncertainty.
“If she is not crooked, she is straight, but you must not say perhaps,” she exclaimed, a little angry. “We can easily go down right away to Mrs. Troll’s house, can’t we, mother, and then we’ll find out what the lady is like.”
“No,” replied the mother, “we shall certainly not go back to the house on account of that. It is, however, time to turn back, otherwise father will get home sooner than we do and that must not happen. We had better return the way we came, it is the shortest way. But, Stefeli, you must not think that we’ll stop at Mrs. Troll’s house till we see those people.”