The mother nodded.  “As soon as the little ones are in bed.”  At this Maezli pricked up her ears.

When all the work was done in the evening, all the family usually played a game together.  Kurt, who was usually the first to pack up his papers, was still scribbling away after Mea had laid hers away.  Looking over his shoulder into the note-book, she exclaimed, “He is writing some verses again!  Who is the subject of your song, Kurt?”

“I’ll read it to you, then you can guess yourself,” said the boy.  “The first verse is already written somewhere else.  Now listen to the second.”

   She stares about with stately mien: 
   “O ho, just look at me! 
   If I am not acknowledged queen,
   I surely ought to be.”

   Her friend agrees with patient air
   And fastens up her shoes. 
   Then queenie thinks:  That’s only fair,
   She couldn’t well refuse.

   But if the friend should try to show
   The queen her faults, look out! 
   She’d break the friendship at a blow
   And straightway turn about.

Mea had been obliged to laugh a little at first at the description of the humble behaviour which did not seem to describe her very well.  Finally, however, sad memories rose up in her.

“Do you know, mother,” she cried out excitedly, “it is not the worst that she shows me her back, but that one can’t ever agree with her.  Every time I find anything pleasant and good, she says the opposite, and when I say that something is wrong and horrid, she won’t be of my opinion either.  It is so hard to keep her friendship because we always seem to quarrel when I haven’t the slightest desire to.”

“Just let her go.  She is the same as her brothers,” said Bruno.  “I never want their friendship again, and I wish I might never have anything more to do with them.”

“It is better to give them things, the way you did to-day,” Kurt remarked.

“I can understand Mea,” said the mother.  “As soon as we came here she tried to get Elvira’s friendship.  She longs for friendship more than you do.”

“Oh, mother, I have six or eight friends here, that is not so bad,” Kurt declared.

“I couldn’t say much for any of them,” Bruno said quickly.

“It must hurt Mea,” the mother continued, “that Elvira does not seem to be capable of friendship.  You only act right in telling her what you consider wrong, Mea.  If you show your attachment to her and try not to be hurt by little differences of opinion, your friendship might gradually improve.”

As Lippo and Maezli felt that the time for the general game had come, they came up to their mother to declare their wish.  Soon everybody was merrily playing.

It happened to-day, as it did every day, that the clock pointed much too soon to the time which meant the inexorable end of playing.  This usually happened when everybody was most eager and everything else was forgotten for the moment.  As soon as the clock struck, playing was discontinued, the evening song was sung and then followed the disappearance of the two little ones.  While the older children put away the toys, the mother went to the piano to choose the song they were to sing.