face to scrutinize the two officers who stood behind her, though as soon as their glance met his he shifted his gaze to the children and summoned his difficult smile once more.

“Let’s go,” said Lucy, looking up from where she sat holding Freidrich, and trying to persuade him not to cram all his candy into his mouth at once.Footsteps sounded again inside the cottage and a woman appeared behind Franz, and, peering out over his shoulder, nodded to Lucy with a smile as cheerless as her husband’s, but tired and spiritless rather than sullen. She was young, but sad and anxious looking. Her light brown hair was twisted up anyhow on her head, and the sleeves of her faded calico were rolled above her elbows.

“Thank you, kind Fräulein,” she said, amiably enough. “The little ones are grateful. Good-day to your young friend, and to each Herr Officer.”

With this greeting she shuffled back into the cottage, without a word to her husband, who was staring at the ground now, forgetting his attempts at civility.

“Good-afternoon,” said Lucy, getting up, still holding little Freidrich’s hand. The others nodded to the German as they turned back toward the forest, the children tagging at their heels.

“We will walk a little way with you, shall we?” asked Adelheid, dancing ahead. She had stuck the bits of tinsel that fell to her share into her flaxen braids, and looked, as she flitted about among the great tree-trunks, like a child come to life out of a German fairy tale.

“Have you lived here always, Adelheid?” asked Larry, smiling at her.

Adelheid’s bright eyes fixed his as for a second she puzzled over his bad German; then, understanding, she said quickly, “Oh, no, Herr Officer. But we have lived here a good while. Let me think. Well, I can’t remember, but we came here when there was fighting. Papachen left off being a soldier to bring us here. He said it was better so—then he need not fight any more. But our mother was not pleased.”

“Need not fight any more because he became a woodcutter?” asked Larry doubtfully.

“I don’t know, mein Herr. That was what he said. He was sad and the mother was sad. We were poor, because we had no longer the farm.”

“You used to have a farm?”

“Yes—a fine one, with pigs and a field. But the fighting came, and they took all that place.”

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