They made friends with this new acquaintance from Switzerland with all their hearts, and Oscar was as ardent as they.

What enterprises they would plan and carry out together! But there was no time to stop and talk about it now.

He could only hint to them that he had a project of founding a great society of Swiss, a kind of Swiss Confederation, in which he wished them to take part.

They received the idea with enthusiasm, and, having fixed a time for meeting his new friends again, Oscar returned to Rosemount with a happy heart.

But what kind of a factory that was of Mr.Fink's, he knew as little as before; he had forgotten to ask.
From this time Oscar was always missing during the time that the children were left to themselves to play as they pleased out-of-doors.
No one minded his absence; Fred was so busy with his collections that he thought of nothing else; Fani and Emma were absorbed in their own plans and only wanted to be let alone; and Elsli, feeling that her society was not important to any one, sat by herself on the bench under the lindens, occupied with her own thoughts by the hour together.
Sometimes she grew unhappy at the thought that she was living here so well-off and at ease, while her father and mother still had such a hard life at home.