Fraulein Rottenmeier? You greet me with an expression of
countenance that quite frightens me. What is the matter? Clara
seems cheerful enough."

"Herr Sesemann," began the lady in a solemn voice, "it is a
matter which concerns Clara; we have been frightfully imposed
upon."

"Indeed, in what way?" asked Herr Sesemann as he went on calmly
drinking his wine.

"We had decided, as you remember, to get a companion for Clara,
and as I knew how anxious you were to have only those who were
well-behaved and nicely brought up about her, I thought I would
look for a little Swiss girl, as I hoped to find such a one as I
have often read about, who, born as it were of the mountain air,
lives and moves without touching the earth."

"Still I think even a Swiss child would have to touch the earth
if she wanted to go anywhere," remarked Herr Sesemann,
"otherwise they would have been given wings instead of feet."

"Ah, Herr Sesemann, you know what I mean," continued Fraulein
Rottenmeier. "I mean one so at home among the living creatures
of the high, pure mountain regions, that she would be like some
idealistic being from another world among us."

"And what could Clara do with such an idealistic being as you
describe, Fraulein Rottenmeier."