t go of Gretel, gave a wild
clutch at the air, and then rolled, rolled, right down a steep bank,
and, splash! into a pool of water at the bottom. For a moment she lay
half stunned, not knowing what had happened to her; then, as her sense
came, "Oh," thought she, "I must be killed, or drowned, or something!"
She tried to call "Gretel," but her voice sounded weak and far off, and
she could see nothing. Slowly she crawled out of the pool, only to
plunge, splash! into another. She felt, oh, so cold, wet, and bruised!
"I must have rolled right down the dike," she thought. "If I could find
it, I might climb up again." She got up and tried to walk, but sank to
her ankles in water at every step.

She was a little lame from her fall, and soaked from head to foot. Her
clothes hung around her most uncomfortably when she tried to walk. But,
if she had to crawl on hands and knees, she must find the house; so,
plunging, tumbling, rising again, she crawled in and out of ditches,
every minute getting more cold and miserable.

But on she went, shivering and sore, every moment wandering farther from
her friends, who were out searching all along the bottom of the dike.

After what seemed to her a long time, she came bump up against something
hard. She did not know what it was, but she could have jumped for joy,
if her clothes had not been so heavy to hear a voice suddenly call out
in Dutch "What's that? Who has hit against my door? Ach! where in the
world have you come from?" Then in a considerably milder tone: "Ach! the
little one! and she is English. How did you get here, dear heart?"

"I--I--fell down the dike. I have--lost--everybody. Oh, how shall I ever
get back to father?" answered Katharine in her very poor Dutch.

"But tell me, little one, where you came from--ach! so cold and wet!"

"I was spending the day with Marie and Gretel--and--Jan--and we were
walking on the dike when the fog came on; then I fell, and could not
find my way--"

"Gretel and Jan--could they be Juffrouw Van Dyne's children?"

"Yes, yes," eagerly; "that is where I was. Oh, _can_ you take me back,
dear, dear juffrouw?"

"Yes, when the fog clears away, my child. I could not find the house
now; it is more than two miles from here. Besides, you must put off
these wet clothes; you will get your death of cold--poor lambkin."

At this Katharine's sobs broke forth afresh. It must be late in the
evening now, she thought; her father would come to Marie's and w