HEIDI
old friend the doctor; give him my kind regards, and ask him if he will come to me to-night at nine o’clock without fail; I have come by express from Paris to consult him. I shall want him to spend the night here, so bad a case is it; so he will arrange accordingly. You understand?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Sebastian, “I will see to the matter as you wish.” Then Herr Sesemann returned to Clara, and begged her to have no more fear, as he would soon find out all about the ghost and put an end to it.
Punctually at nine o’clock, after the children had gone to bed and Fräulein Rottenmeier had retired, the doctor arrived. He was a gray-haired man with a fresh face, and two bright, kindly eyes. He looked anxious as he walked in, but, on catching sight of his patient, burst out laughing and clapped him on the shoulder. “Well,” he said, “you look pretty bad for a person that I am to sit up with all night.”
“Patience, friend,” answered Herr Sesemann, “the one you have to sit up for will look a good deal worse when we have once caught him.”
“So there is a sick person in the house, and one that has first to be caught?”
“Much worse than that, doctor! a ghost in the house! My house is haunted!”
The doctor laughed aloud.
“That’s a nice way of showing sympathy, doctor!” continued Herr, Sesemann. “It’s a pity my friend Rottenmeier cannot hear you. She is firmly convinced that some old member of the family is wandering about the house doing penance for some awful crime he committed.”
[188]
