At last the mother stood still, and Nika, lifting her head from her work, listened, too.
When the song was done, Agnes clapped her hands and said: “Oh, Cornelli, your voice is as clear as a bell! Oh, if I only had a voice like that! What wonderful things I could sing then! Do you know many songs, Cornelli? Just tell me all you know.”
Cornelli looked over the song book before her. She knew quite a number of the songs in it, for Martha had taught her many.
Agnes was in raptures: “Oh, now our evening songs won’t be like a feeble chirping any more; now everything, everything will be different!” she cried out. Suddenly struck with a new idea, she ran over to her other music books.
She got a book of songs for two voices, which she had only been able to use at her music lessons and never at home, for Nika could not join her. “Come, Cornelli, try to sing after me now. This is your part, and when you know it, I’ll sing mine. Here are your notes,” she instructed Cornelli, and with that she began to sing.
Cornelli did not know the notes very well, because Mr. Maelinger had not instructed her very deeply in that subject. Her ear, however, was correct, and she could immediately repeat a melody. Agnes began with the easiest songs, and it did not take Cornelli any time to learn them. She soon knew where to pause and where to take up her part again. So a second piece was started and soon a third. Then they repeated them all again and before long they could sing three songs quite well.
“Once more, once more,” Agnes urged her. It went better every time, and in the end they sang together perfectly. Agnes jumped up from her seat and exclaimed: “Oh, you are a wonderful Cornelli! Who would have thought it? Please do not go home yet. Stay here, and then we can sing together every day. Have you heard it, Mama?”
The mother affirmed it and told them that she and Dino had both enjoyed the singing. Dino had asked to have his door kept open, for he had wanted to hear it all.
“Do you know what we’ll do, Cornelli?” said Agnes. “Tomorrow morning we’ll study a festive duet. We shall greet Dino with it when he comes back to this room again for the first time.”
Cornelli gladly agreed.
It was time now for their accustomed evening song, which had been put off longer than usual that day. Agnes was of the decided opinion that it was not suitable to end this day with a mild evening song. She suggested a loud hymn of praise and thanks. She started it with enthusiasm, and all the others soon joined.
The unexpected joy and great friendliness Agnes had shown had made Cornelli so happy and astonished that she sat a long time on her bed in the little room. She was wondering to herself why she could never be quite happy in spite of everybody’s goodness, but she knew soon enough why this was so. Her old fear had not left her. She fully realized that she looked different from other children and that her horns would get worse, till they could not be hidden any more. Then everybody would think what Mux had thought, even if they did not say it.
Next morning, when Cornelli had just gotten up, Mrs. Halm entered her room. “Cornelli,” she said, taking the child’s hand, “you have made us all so happy! You have done much for Dino by helping him to pass many pleasant hours, and you have entertained my little restless Mux so wonderfully that he can hardly live without you any more. I should like to do something for you now; I should love to make you look festive today and get rid forever of everything that disfigures you.”
The mother had already begun to smooth out the child’s thick hair.
“Oh no, oh no, please don’t do it!” Cornelli cried out, “then everything will be lost. I want to go home, oh, I must go home! Oh, they will all laugh at me and they won’t like me any more. Oh, you don’t know how it is.”
“I know everything, dear child,” the mother said quietly. “Dino has told me everything. Don’t you know, child, that I love you? You know, Cornelli, that I would not do anything that might hurt you the least bit, or that would not help you. I want to free you from an error, Cornelli.”
“No, no, it is not an error, surely not,” Cornelli called out in her great anxiety. “My cousin said it and Miss Grideelen said it, too. They saw it, and I know it. Oh, please don’t brush my hair away.”
“Cornelli,” the mother went on calmly, “the ladies told you they saw little horns on your forehead, that got bigger every time you wrinkled up your brow. You are afraid that this is really so and that it is getting worse. You understood it in a way they did not mean. They only wanted to tell you that when you frowned you looked as if you had horns on your forehead, and they said it to keep you from frowning. They meant well by you, but you misunderstood them. But you can understand me. Just let me help you to be happy again.
“Have you any confidence in me, Cornelli? Tell me, do you think that I would do anything that would make you repulsive in the eyes of everyone? Do you believe that? I know you don’t, child!” Cornelli only groaned a little.
With nimble hands the mother had in the meantime kept on smoothing and combing the child’s heavy hair. It already lay beautifully parted
