“Well, I should think you certainly could do that, when the stable belongs to you. Who would hinder you, I’d like to know?” Dino said. “Do you know what we’ll do? We’ll hitch the little kid to a cart. Won’t that be lovely? It can pull you and I shall be the coachman. I once saw such a little carriage on a promenade in town.” Cornelli had already had that thought herself, but she knew now that she could never again go to the stable. It was suddenly clear to her that she could not run about as before and that she could not be happy any more. The chief reason for it all was clear to her, the reason that prevented her from being carefree and bright as in the old times. She did not answer, but gave forth a profound sigh, profounder than the one she had uttered before. “Why do you sigh, as if you had to carry a mountain about with you--a load that keeps you from going forward? Why do you do it?” asked Dino. “I can’t tell anyone. You couldn’t, either, if you had the trouble I have,” replied the little girl. “Oh, yes, I could. There is nothing in the world I couldn’t tell,” Dino asserted. “If you can’t confide in other people, you can always tell your mother, for she can always smooth everything out for you. Just go to her and tell her about it. That will relieve you and everything will come right.” “Yes, and now I can say what you said to me before. You are lucky and much luckier than I am,” said Cornelli with a trembling voice. “I never can go to my mother because I have none. Now you see how well off I am! I am sure you would never exchange with me, would you?” Dino looked quite frightened. “I did not know that you had no mother,” he said, full of pity. In his mind he saw his own mother, the way she looked at him, so full of love that it always lightened his heart whenever anything troubled him. And poor Cornelli had to miss all that! Even the stable with the horses, the large garden with all the fruit, about which Martha had told him so much, appeared to him now in a different light. Full of decision he said: “No indeed, I would not change with you.” But a great pity for the motherless child welled up in Dino’s heart and he longed to be her protector. He could understand now why Cornelli looked so strange; he had even noticed it as soon as he had seen her. There was no mother to fix everything the way it should be. “We’ll try to be friends, Cornelli! But you must push your hair back from your forehead first of all; one can hardly see your eyes. Nobody wears hair like that. I don’t see how such long hair can stay there without blowing off. What on earth did you paste it on with?” “With glue,” replied Cornelli. “How nasty! Come, I’ll cut it all off, and then your eyes and your forehead will be clear. You can hardly see that way.” Dino had seized the scissors that were lying beside Martha’s work basket, but Cornelli, struggling against him with both hands, fairly screamed: “Let it be. It has to be that way. Put the scissors away!”