daughter? What is this strange thing I hear about her bringing
animals into the house, and is she in her right senses?"

The tutor felt he must begin with expressing his pleasure at
Herr Sesemann's return, and with explaining that he had come in
on purpose to give him welcome, but Herr Sesemann begged him to
explain without delay the meaning of all he had heard about
Heidi. The tutor started in his usual style. "If I must give my
opinion about this little girl, I should like first to state
that, if on one side, there is a lack of development which has
been caused by the more or less careless way in which she has
been brought up, or rather, by the neglect of her education,
when young, and by the solitary life she has led on the mountain,
which is not wholly to be condemned; on the contrary, such a
life has undoubtedly some advantages in it, if not allowed to
overstep a certain limit of time--"

"My good friend," interrupted Herr Sesemann, "you are giving
yourself more trouble than you need. I only want to know if the
child has caused you alarm by any animals she has brought into
the house, and what your opinion is altogether as to her being a
fit companion or not for my daughter?"

"I should not like in any way to prejudice you against her,"
began the tutor once more; "for if on the one hand there is a
certain inexperience of the ways of society, owing to the
uncivilised life she led up to the time of her removal to
Frankfurt, on the other hand she is endowed with certain good
qualities, and, taken on the whole--"