Sebastian disappeared on the spot. "As for you, Adelaide, I see I
shall have to teach you the first rules of behavior," continued
the lady-housekeeper with a sigh. "I will begin by explaining to
you how you are to conduct yourself at table," and she went on to
give Heidi minute instructions as to all she was to do. "And
now," she continued, "I must make you particularly understand
that you are not to speak to Sebastian at table, or at any other
time, unless you have an order to give him, or a necessary
question to put to him; and then you are not to address him as
if he was some one belonging to you. Never let me hear you speak
to him in that way again! It is the same with Tinette, and for
myself you are to address me as you hear others doing. Clara
must herself decide what you are to call her."
"Why, Clara, of course," put the latter. Then followed a long
list of rules as to general behavior, getting up and going to
bed, going in and out of the room, shutting the doors, keeping
everything tidy, during the course of which Heidi's eyes
gradually closed, for she had been up before five o'clock that
morning and had had a long journey. She leant back in her chair
and fell fast asleep. Fraulein Rottenmeier having at last come
to the end of her sermonizing said, "Now remember what I have
said, Adelaide! Have you understood it all?"
"Heidi has been asleep for ever so long," said Clara, her face
rippling all over with amusement, for she had not had such an
entertaining dinner for a long time.
"It is really insupportable what one has to go through with this
child," exclaimed Fraulein Rottenmeier, in great indignation,
and she rang the bell so violently that Tinette and Sebastian
both came running in and nearly tumbling over one another; but no
noise was sufficient to wake Heidi, and it was with difficulty
they could rouse her sufficiently to get her along to her
bedroom, to reach which she had to pass first through the study,
then through Clara's bedroom, then through Fraulein Rottenmeier's
sitting-room, till she came to the corner room that had been set
apart for her.
67