CHAPTER VI.
A Lost Hymn The next morning, when the mother lay still and pale on her bed, Erick woke up; Marianne, who had watched for his wakening, came to his couch and said: "Dear Erick, your mother has gone, last night, to heaven, and now she feels very happy, and looks down on you and watches to see whether you stay good and honest so that sometime you may come to her." First he had answered quite quietly: "Yes, I know, Mother has told me that it would come so." But when he went to his mother and looked at her for a long, long time and she did not open her eyes, then he sat down on a footstool and cried quietly.

As long as his mother lay there he could not be made to leave her, and when she was carried out, then he sat down in the spot where she always had sat, and did not go away the whole day.
But he was quite still, and although he wept, he did it so quietly that no sound could be heard.
The day after the officials had been there and Marianne had taken Erick from the empty room upstairs to her little home, she thought that it would be best if he were to go to school and again come in contact with other children, so that he might become happy again and make a little noise with them; for this quiet weeping seemed sadder to Marianne than if he had sobbed aloud.

So she told him on that morning, that it would be best for him if he were to go to school.

In an instant Erick obeyed, took out his books, packed them in his bag and started on his way to school.

So it went on from day to day, and gradually it seemed to Marianne that Erick grew more and more as he used to be; but the sunny, joyous face which he used to have had not yet returned, and something like shyness had come to him, which never before had been noticed in him.