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240 HEIDI |
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The doctor dropped down beside her on the sunny pasture ground. Round about the golden autumn sun shone over the peaks and the distant green valley. Everywhere from the pastures below came the sound of the herd bells, so lovely and delightful, as if announcing sweet peace far and wide. The golden sunbeams flashed sparkling and glistening here and there on the great snow fields above, and the gray Falkniss lifted its towers of rock in lofty majesty far up into the deep blue sky. The morning breeze blew gently and deli-ciously over the mountain and softly stirred the last bluebells, still remaining from the great multitude of the summer, and cheerfully nodding their little heads in the warm sunshine. The great robber-bird flew around in wide circles above, but to-day he did not scream; with outspread wings he floated peacefully through the blue and took his ease.
Heidi gazed first one way and then another. The gay nodding flowers, the blue sky, the merry sunshine, the contented bird in the air, all were so beautiful, so beautiful! Heidi's eyes sparkled with delight. She looked at her friend to see whether he, too, understood how beautiful it was. Until now the doctor had been looking around him silently and wrapt in thought. As he met the child's beaming eyes he said: —
" Yes, Heidi, it is beautiful here ; but what do you think ? If you brought a sad heart, how could you make it well, so that you could enjoy all this beauty?"
"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Heidi quite gayly; "nobody ever has a sad heart here, — only in Frankfurt." |
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