The others turned and Frieda, who had been standing in a dreary silence, listening to the chatter of all these dear boys and girls whom she was leaving perhaps forever, suddenly ran across the platform to where a little old lady in black with a knitted shawl over her head, and a little old man in ill-fitting clothes were standing.
“We came to tell our little friend good-by,” “And to wish her Gute Reise!” They spoke in a kind of duet.
“Here are a few poor blossoms from our garden–”
“That you forget not the old people–”
“And a trifle of Kuchen that I made myself–”
“And this I have carved for you, to put your pens on–”
Frieda, beaming and exclaiming her gratitude, made a pretty picture and the young people, observing her and hearing the rapid German, felt that they 289 were seeing her in a better light than they had before, much as they had already learned to like and enjoy her.
Dot clung to Hannah, and the gentle Agnes, who had found Alice incredibly congenial, walked arm in arm with her a little apart from the others, while Catherine in the center of the group held her father’s arm fast.
They were off at last.
“I thought that child in the back seat was Elsmere,” sighed Catherine, starting up and dropping back again, relieved. “That child actually gets on my mind so that I expect to see him everywhere.”