ABSTRACT
At the rich merchant’s there was a children’s party; rich people’s children and grand people’s children were there. The merchant was a learned man; he had once gone through the college examination, for his honest father had kept him to this, his father who had at first only been a cattle dealer, but always an honest and industrious man; the trade had brought money, and the merchant had managed to increase the store. Clever he was, and he had also a heart, but there was less said of his heart than of his money. At the merchant’s, grand people went in and out; people of blood, as it is called, and people of intellect, and people who had both of these, and people who had neither. Now there was a children’s party there, and children’s prattle, and children speak frankly from the heart. Among the rest there was a beautiful little girl, and the little one was terribly proud, but the servants had taught her that, not her parents, who were far too sensible people. Her father was a groom of the bed-chamber, and that is a very grand office, and she knew it.
