She received the guest with excellent manners and led her into the front room to the sofa, for Maezli knew exactly the way her mother always did.

Then she gave her mother's message.
"Very well, very well, And what do you want to do on this beautiful Sunday ?" the lady asked, "Take a walk," Maezli answered rapidly.

"Are they still locked up ?" she then casually asked.
"Who?
Who?
Whom do you mean ?" and the lady looked somewhat disapprovingly at the little girl.
"Edwin and Eugen," Maezli answered fearlessly.
"I should like to know where you get such ideas," the lady said with growing irritation.

"I should like to know why the boys should be locked up." "Because they are so mean to Loneli all the time," Maezli declared.
The mother entered now.

To her friendly greeting she only received a very cold reply.
"I only wonder, Mrs.Rector," the guest began immediately in an irritated manner, "what meanness that little poison-toad of a Loneli has spread and invented about my boys.