Martha, fetching a comb, was going to touch Cornelli’s hair, when Cornelli hindered her by crying out: “No, Martha, leave it! It has to stay that way all my life.” “Oh, no, I won’t believe that. Why should your face be half covered up? One can hardly recognize you,” Martha said regretfully. “What do the ladies say about it?” “Miss Dorner says that I am the most obstinate being in the whole world, and that no one can ever set me right,” was Cornelli’s truthful information. Then she added: “She says that no child on earth looks as ugly as I do and that nobody in the world will ever like me. I know that it is true, and I only wish nobody were coming to you; then I could always be alone with you.” “Cornelli, I am quite sure that you would do right in obeying the ladies,” said Martha. “If you did what they say, they would love you as well as everybody else does.” “No, no, Martha, you don’t know how it is,” Cornelli said, quite frightened. “I’ll do everything they say, but I can never push my hair away, for then it would be worse still and everybody could see it.” Martha shook her head. “I do not know what you mean, Cornelli. Please come to me just as often as you can. I shall always love you more than anybody who might ever come here. If you did not come, it would hurt me dreadfully. Then I would rather not have the rector’s son here, glad as I am now that he is coming.” “All right, Martha, then I shall come,” Cornelli promised. “We can easily be alone together in the kitchen, for I want to see you alone. I shall not come on Monday, for that is the day they arrive. On Tuesday, though, I’ll come. Then we’ll go together to the kitchen.” Martha promised this and Cornelli went home in the same way as she had come. Not once did she run to the meadow to pick forget-me-nots or other flowers that were sparkling there. When Monday came, she was wondering if a carriage would arrive with a proud city boy and a lady with a high feather hat, both of whom would look down on her with disdain. Cornelli settled down beside the garden fence, for from there she could conveniently survey the road. But she saw no carriage, though she watched through both the morning and the afternoon. She really was very glad, for she was quite sure that nobody had arrived. Next day when the time came for her to be free, she walked over to Martha’s little house. “Oh, I am so glad that nobody has come. Now I can be alone with you and don’t have to go to the kitchen--” Cornelli had said these words on entering, but she suddenly stopped. A boy she had never seen sat at the table in the room and Martha was just clearing away the supper things. So he had come after all and had even heard what she had said. Oh, it was dreadful! But the boy was laughing.