basket is unpacked," said Fraulein Rottenmeier.

Clara could not conceive what was in it, and cast longing
glances towards it. In the middle of one of her declensions she
suddenly broke off and said to the tutor, "Mayn't I just give one
peep inside to see what is in it before I go on?"

"On some considerations I am for it, on others against it," he
began in answer; "for it, on the ground that if your whole
attention is directed to the basket--" but the speech remained
unfinished. The cover of the basket was loose, and at this
moment one, two, three, and then two more, and again more kittens
came suddenly tumbling on to the floor and racing about the room
in every direction, and with such indescribable rapidity that it
seemed as if the whole room was full of them. They jumped over
the tutor's boots, bit at his trousers, climbed up Fraulein
Rottenmeier's dress, rolled about her feet, sprang up on to
Clara's couch, scratching, scrambling, and mewing: it was a sad
scene of confusion. Clara, meanwhile, pleased with their
gambols, kept on exclaiming, "Oh, the dear little things! how
pretty they are! Look, Heidi, at this one; look, look, at that
one over there!" And Heidi in her delight kept running after them
first into one corner and then into the other. The tutor stood up
by the table not knowing what to do, lifting first his right foot
and then his left to get it away from the scrambling, scratching
kittens. Fraulein Rottenmeier was unable at first to speak at
all, so overcome was she with horror, and she did not dare rise
from her chair for fear that all the dreadful little animals
should jump upon her at once. At last she found voice to call
loudly, "Tinette! Tinette! Sebastian! Sebastian!"