or, The Silver Skates 276

Amsterdam, it wouldn’t be so lonely. How cold her feet
were growing! was it the moaning that made her feel as if
she were floating in the air?

This would not do: the mother might need her help at any
moment !

Rousing herself with an effort, Gretel sat upright, rubbing
her eyes and wondering, — wondering that the sky was so
bright and blue,— wondering at the stillness in the cottage,
more than all, at the laughter rising and falling in the distance.

Soon she sank down again, the strange medley of thought
growing more and more confused in her bewildered brain.

What a strange lip the meester had! How the stork’s nest
upon the roof seemed to rustle and whisper down to her!
How bright those knives were in the leathern case ! — brighter,
perhaps, than the silver skates. If she had but worn her new
jacket, she would not shiver so. The new jacket was pretty,
— the only pretty thing she had ever worn. God had taken
care of her father so long, he would do it still, if those two
men would but go away. Ah, now the meesters were on the
roof: they were clambering to the top— no, it was her
mother and Hans,—or the storks—it was so dark, who
could tell, and the mound rocking, swinging, in that strange
way? How sweetly the birds were singing! ‘They must
be winter birds; for the air was thick with icicles — not
one bird, but twenty. Oh! hear them, mother; wake me,
mother, for the race; I am so tired with crying, and crying —

A firm hand was laid upon her shoulder.

- “Get up, little girl!’ cried a kind voice. “ This will not
do, for you to lie here and freeze.”

Gretel slowly raised her head. She was so sleepy, that it
seemed nothing strange to her that Hilda van Gleck should