No doubt Erick had started to come and see Marianne, his friend in Oakwood, and on his way there had fallen into the Woodbach by accident, Marianne thought, for in her anxiety for his welfare, she had not spoken a word with Erick about the accident.

Now he was fast asleep.
Marianne sat down beside him and lifted the cover now and then to listen whether he was breathing properly.

After she had sat thus a while and noticed how the little fellow's cheeks began to glow like the reddest strawberries, then she feared no longer that he would catch cold, and she also felt sure that 'Lizebeth would not come and thought that the people in the parsonage would assume that he was going to spend the night at the cottage.

So Marianne had peacefully locked her cottage and gone to sleep.
The next morning Marianne first had to brush and press the velvet suit, for she would not bring the boy back to the parsonage in disorder; she would not have done that for the sake of his blessed mother.

Then she too must dress in her Sunday best, and so the morning had almost passed before they both had started on their way, quite contented and without any suspicion of the enormous fear and excitement which had been in the parsonage and had spread over the whole of Upper Wood.