PREPARATIONS FOR A JOURNEY
“Dear doctor, you will go and see Heidi, won’t you? and then you can come and tell me all about it, what it is like up there, and what Heidi and the grandfather, and Peter and the goats do all day. I know them all so well! And then you can take what I want to send to Heidi; I have thought about it all, and also something for the grandmother. Do pray go, dear doctor, and I will take as much cod liver oil as you like.”
Whether this promise finally decided the doctor it is impossible to say, but it is certain that he smiled and said,—
“Then I must certainly go, Clara, for you will then get as plump and strong as your father and I wish to see you. And have you decided when I am to start?”
“To-morrow morning-early if possible,” replied Clara.
“Yes, she is right,” put in Herr Sesemann; “the sun is shining and the sky is blue, and there is no time to be lost; it is a pity to miss a single one of these days on the mountain.”
The doctor could not help laughing. “You will be reproaching me next for not being there already; well, I must go and make arrangements for getting off.”
But Clara would not let him go until she had given him endless messages for Heidi, and had explained all he was to look at so as to give her an exact description on his return. Her presents she would send round later, as Fräulein Rottenmeier must first help her to pack them up; at that moment she was out on one of her excursions into the town which always kept her engaged for some time. The doctor promised to obey Clara’s directions in every particular; he would start some time during the following day if not the first thing in the morn-
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