ght towards the great pine tree, which
sheltered the underground home of Councillor Igel.

"Come, Johann!" cried Otto, bounding along over the slippery pathway;
but Johann was small and fat, and his little legs could not keep pace
with Otto's long ones. He soon fell behind, and Otto raced on by
himself.

"Do be careful, Otto! There's lots of Moles here," cried little
Johann, but Otto did not stop to listen. On he ran almost up to the
pine tree; when Johann saw him suddenly jump into the air, and
disappear through the snow with a loud shriek.

CHAPTER IV.

At the sound of the fall, the Councillor ran up the steps to his front
door, and put out his head cautiously to see what was the matter.

"Gypsies!" said Uncle Columbus without raising his eyes from his
book; and for the first time in his life he was right!

Gypsies it certainly was, as the Councillor soon determined; and he
hastily scratched some snow over the door, and retired to the back
kitchen with his whole family, in a terrible state of fright and
excitement.

"What _can_ the boy have fallen into?" he enquired vainly of the
Hedgehog-mother, and of Uncle Columbus, in turn. "There are no houses
there that _I_ know of. We have been saved by almost a miracle!"

As they remained shuddering in a little frightened knot--only Uncle
Columbus maintaining his philosophical calm--the air filled with the
odour of burnt sugar; a faint knocking was heard against the side of
the stove pipe, and in another minute the Mole-father's red nightcap
appeared through a hole, and his kind face shortly followed.

"Don't be frightened," he said reassuringly. "I have made a little
tunnel and come through--merely to explain things. I thought perhaps
you might be a little alarmed."

"Alarmed!" cried the Hedgehog-mother. "It doesn't describe it!
Terrified, and distracted, is nearer to the real thing. The sugar
biscuits are all spoilt, for I forgot them in the oven; and my
daughter Berta fainted on the top of the stove, and is so seriously
singed, she will be unable to appear at the party. Not that we shall
be able to have a party now," continued the Hedgehog-mother, weeping,
"for Uncle Columbus sat down on the plum cake in mistake for a
foot-stool, and Fritz has trodden on the punch bottles. Oh, what a
series of misfortunes!"

"Cheer up, my good neighbour, all will come right in time," said the
Mole-father encouragingly.

"As long as the Court Hedgehog doesn't appear in the