"Everything?" asks the little one, with great, surprised eyes. "Could He make Fido into a cow?"
Fido, a white bull-dog with pointed black ears and a black spot on his shoulder, raises his upper lip and shows his teeth pleasantly as a sign that he, clever dog that he is, notices when he is spoken of.
"The dear God does not wish to do foolish things," says Elsa, very seriously.
"But if He wanted to?"
The door opens. Fido rises from the streak of sunlight in which he has been lying. "Papa!" cries Litzi, and a young man, blond, with unusually attractive dark eyes, seizes her under the shoulders, and raising her to him he says: "Litzi, Litzi, you are a dear little mouse, but a great big goose. Accustom yourself to the conditional."
"What is conditional?"
"A form of expression which leads one to much useless conjecture."
"But, Erwin!" laughingly admonishes Elsa.
"Perhaps you did not wholly understand me, Litzi?" he asks, drolly staring at the child.
She shakes her head, and says somewhat vexedly, "You are laughing at me, papa."