"Yes, I believe you, Grandfather," answered Erick. "That is good stuff that I am wearing; it comes from you. You see, when in the old suit which I had worn so long, the patches became holes, then Mother brought out the beautiful velvet cloak, with the broad lace, and said: 'That is good, that comes from Grandfather, you can wear that a long time.' And then she cut everything apart and sewed everything together again, and so there came out what I am now wearing. And Mother received a great deal of money for the broad lace. But only when all was finished and I was wearing it, she became glad again; during the cutting and the sewing together, she was very quiet." The grandfather too had become still, and he turned away for a while. No doubt he too thought of the time and what happy days they were when he had hung around his beloved child the rich mantle, and how sweetly she stood before him, she whom he was never to see again. "Come, my boy," he said, turning again to Erick. "What has become of your foster-parents? It is time that we thank them." The pastor's wife had seen at once that the grandfather had recognized his grandson, and as the latter was standing before him, she gently urged her husband and children, as well as Marianne, out of the room and closed the door after her; and outside, in the long passage, she let the interested crowd ask their loud questions, and give their loudest answers, undisturbed. But when the colonel, holding Erick by the hand, came out of the study, she at once made an open path for them through the assembled people, to bring them upstairs to the quiet reception room, where at last the family and their guest could be among themselves. Here the beaming grandfather went first to the lady of the house, and then to the master and then again to the lady, and every time he took each by both their hands with indescribable heartiness and kept on saying: "I have no words, but thanks, eternal thanks!" And all at once he saw Sally's head peeping out from behind her mother. He suddenly took it between his two hands and cried: "There is, I believe, the great friend and defender of my boy. Well, now will you forgive me?" Sally pulled one of his hands down and pressed a hearty kiss on it, and now the colonel tenderly stroked her hair and said: "Such good friends are worth a great deal!" But when he expressed his intention to start at once with Erick, there arose great opposition, and this time the mother distinguished herself in opposition against such quick separation. The grandfather of her Erick ought to spend at least one night beneath her roof, and give the family the chance of learning to know him a little better and to have Erick another day in their midst.