“Oh, Fani, you trouble me still more when you talk so,” interrupted Elsli, sadly. “I see more plainly every day that I can never be what Mrs. Stanhope wants me to be. I am afraid she will be more and more vexed about it, and will like me less and less. And you too will be ashamed of me by and by, because I cannot be what you would like to have me.” Fani had seated himself again at Elsli’s side, but at these words he sprang again to his feet, crying out reproachfully:-- “Oh, Elsli, what strange notions have you taken into your head? It isn’t pleasant in you to talk so. Why don’t you think of all the nice things there are, and what good times we have together, and let all these melancholy ideas go?” “I don’t think of melancholy things on purpose, Fani, and I wish I did not at all,” said Elsli, pleadingly. “It is this way. Whenever I begin to think of something very pleasant, then sad thoughts come into my mind, and I keep wondering whether there isn’t something that I can do for those in trouble, and then I am unhappy because I can’t think of anything. I see so many things that you don’t see, and I can’t get them out of my head all day long.” “What sort of things?” asked the boy in surprise. “Well, for instance, twice when we have been coming home from our afternoon walk, we have met a man with a heavy shovel on his shoulder, and you didn’t notice him because you were so busy talking with Mrs. Stanhope. The man looked down on the ground, just as father does when he comes home at night all tired out and says, ‘We shall hardly pull through, if I work ever so hard; I’m afraid we can’t keep out of debt.’ I’m sure that man is worried just as father was, and I keep thinking if I could only go after him and find out where he lives, I might do him some good, perhaps.” “But you mustn’t do that,” cried Fani, much horrified. “Don’t you remember how Mrs. Stanhope told us in the very beginning that we must never go into any house where we didn’t know the people? and that we mustn’t speak first to people we don’t know, as we do at home? You must not go and talk to that man. Do you hear, Elsli? Mrs. Stanhope would be very angry with you.” Elsli thought for a while. Presently she said, “I do not believe that Mrs. Stanhope meant that I should not speak to a poor man who is in trouble, as this man is. She only meant that we mustn’t talk with people who ask us questions about where we came from and how we live at home. I don’t believe she meant people like this man at all.” “Oh, Elsli, you can’t make distinctions, that way,” said Fani, impatiently. “All we have to do is to mind what we are told, and not speak to strange people or go to their houses. Now let’s talk about something else; this sort of talk is tiresome. Come here; I’ll show you something.”