THE HISTORY OF A. NUT-CRACKER. 59

mice. I heard you call the king with the seven heads.
Why did you not come to the aid of my poor Nut-cracker,
naughty Godpapa Drosselmayer; for, by not coming, you
were the cause of my hurting myself and having to keep
my bed.”

” The judge’s wife listened to all this with a kind of
stupor; for she thought that the poor little girl was relapsing
into delirium. She therefore said,.in a low tone of alarm,
‘What are you talking about, Mary? are you taking leave

<==. of your senses?”
“Oh! no,” answered Mary; ‘and
Godpapa Drosselmayer knows that I
“vam telling the truth.”

\ But the godfather, without saying
<\- a word, made horrible faces, like a
man who was sitting upon thorns;

if then all of a sudden he began to
chaunt these lines in a gloomy and sing-song tone:—

 

 
 
 

Old Clock-bell, beat
Low, dull, and hoarse :—
Advance, retreat, .
Thou gallant force!

The bell’s lone sound proclaims around’
The hour of-deep mid-night;

And the piercing note from the screech-owl’s throat
Puts the king himself to flight.

Old clock-bell, beat

Low, dull, and hoarse :—
Advance, retreat,

Thou gallant force!”

Mary contemplated Godfather Drosselmayer with increas-
ing terror; for he now seemed to her more hideously ugly
than usual. She would indeed have ‘been dreadfully afraid
of him, if her mother had not’ been present, and if Fritz had
not at that moment entered the room with a loud shout of
laughter.