Salemina tittered audibly in the corridor, and I crossed the room
and closed the door. I think the children expected me to put the
key in my pocket and then murder them and stuff them into the
stove.

"I know perfectly well that he is dead, my child," I replied
winningly,--"it is his life, his memory that I love.--And once upon
a time, long ago, a great man named Friedrich Froebel came here to
Yverdon and studied with your great Pestalozzi. It was he who made
kindergartens for little children, jardins des enfants, you know.
Some of your grand-mothers remember Froebel, I think?"

Hereupon two of the smaller chits shouted some sort of a negation
which I did not in the least comprehend, but which from large
American experience I took to be, "My grandmother doesn't!" "My
grandmother doesn't!"

Seeing that the others regarded me favourably, I continued, "It is
because I love Pestalozzi and Froebel, that I came here to day to
see your beautiful new monument. I have just bought a photograph
taken on that day last year when it was first uncovered. It shows
the flags and the decorations, the flowers and garlands, and ever
so many children standing in the sunshine, dressed in white and
singing hymns of praise. You are all in the picture, I am sure!"

This was a happy stroke. The children crowded about me and showed
me where they were standing in the photograph, what they wore on
the august occasion, how the bright sun made them squint, how a
certain malheureuse Henriette couldn't go to the festival because