"A beautiful kind woman, who loves everybody, and you especially, because
you are her godchild."

He felt as if an endless fountain of happiness streamed upon his head. He
was so excited that he trembled.

"Why do you not drive, then, to the beautiful kind woman?" he asked, after
a while.

"Papa won't let us," she answered, and her voice had a strangely sharp tone
which struck him.

He did not ask any more, for his father's wish was regarded as a law of
which nobody had a right to ask the reason, but from that day the secret
of the White House formed a new tie between mother and son. They could not
speak about it openly.

His father was furious if one only hinted at its existence, and his
brothers also did not like to talk about it with him, the younger one; very
likely they feared that he would repeat it in his foolishness. But his
mother--his mother trusted him.

When they were alone together--and they were nearly always alone during
school-time--she would open her mouth and her heart, too, and the White
House arose higher and brighter before his eyes from her description of it.
Soon he knew each room, each arbor in the garden, the pond, surrounded by
green bushes and shrubs, before it the shining glass balls, and the sundial
on the terrace: only fancy, a clock on which the sun itself had to mark the
hours.