CHAPTER I.

GODFATHER DROSSELMAYER.

On CE upon a time there lived at Nuremberg, in Germany,
a judge of great respectability, and who was called Judge
Siberian which means ‘“silver-house.”

This judge had a son and a daughter. The son was
nine years old, and was named Fritz: the daughter, who was
seven and a half, was called Mary.

They were two beautiful children; but so different in
disposition and features, that no one would have believed
them to be brother and sister.