"
"Ah, go along. Still waters run deep--But come, let us swing, two on a
side; I don't believe it will break. Or if you don't care to, for you
are drawing long faces again, then we will play hide-and-seek. I still
have a quarter of an hour. I don't want to go in, yet, and anyhow it
is merely to say: 'How do you do?' to a district councillor, and a
district councillor from Further Pomerania to boot. He is elderly,
too. Why he might almost be my father; and if he actually lives in a
seaport, for, you know, that is what Kessin is said to be, I really
ought to make the best impression upon him in this sailor costume, and
he ought almost to consider it a delicate attention. When princes
receive anybody, I know from what papa has told me, they always put on
the uniform of the country of their guest. So don't worry--Quick,
quick, I am going to hide and here by the bench is the base."
Hulda was about to fix a few boundaries, but Effi had already run up
the first gravel walk, turning to the left, then to the right, and
suddenly vanishing from sight. "Effi, that does not count; where are
you? We are not playing run away; we are playing hide-and-seek." With
these and similar reproaches the girls ran to search for her, far
beyond the circular bed and the two plane trees standing by the side
of the path. She first let them get much farther than she was from the
base and then, rushing suddenly from her hiding place, reached the
bench, without any special exertion, before there was time to say:
"one, two, three.
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