with deep feeling, “I am very, very grateful to you for the shelter which you have so kindly offered me. Also, to a certain extent you have guessed my position aright, and I am beholden to you to such an extent that it may be that I will come and live with you, and that very soon; yet there are important reasons why—why I cannot make up my mind just yet. If you would let me have, say, a couple of weeks to decide in—?”
“You mean that you are not coming?”
“I mean only that I cannot come just yet. At all events, I could not well leave my little brother and sister here, since, since—if I were to leave them—they would be abandoned altogether. But if, Grandmamma, you would take the little ones and myself, then, of course, I could come with you, and would do all I could to serve you” (this she said with great earnestness). “Only, without the little ones I cannot come.”