have done what our masters wished.
So in us our masters, being dead, yet may speak and live."

Then the voice sank away in silence, and a strange golden light
that had shone on the great stove faded away; so also the light
died down in the silver candelabra. A soft, pathetic melody stole
gently through the room. It came from the old, old spinet that
was covered with the faded roses.

Then that sad, sighing music of a bygone day died too; the clocks
of the city struck six of the morning; day was rising over the
Bayerischenwald. August awoke with a great start, and found
himself lying on the bare bricks of the floor of the chamber, and
all the _bric-a-brac_ was lying quite still all around. The
pretty Lady of Meissen was motionless on her porcelain bracket,
and the little Saxe poodle was quiet at her side.

He rose slowly to his feet. He was very cold, but he was not
sensible of it or of the hunger that was gnawing his little empty
entrails. He was absorbed in the wondrous sight, in the wondrous
sounds, that he had seen and heard.

X

All was dark around him. Was it still midnight or had morning
come? Morning, surely; for against the barred shutters he heard
the tiny song of the robin.

Tramp, tramp, too, came a heavy step up the stair. He had but a
moment in which to scramble back into the interior of the great
stove, when the door opened and the two dealers entered, bringing
burning candles with them to see their way.

August was scarcely conscious of danger more than he was of cold
or hunger. A marvellous sense of courage, of security, of
happiness, was about him, like strong and gentle arms enfolding
him and lifting him upwards--upwards--upwards! Hirschvogel would
defend him.

The dealers undid the shutters, scaring the red-breast away, and
then tramped about in their heavy boots and chattered in
contented voices, and began to wrap up the stove once more in all
its straw and hay and cordage.

It never once occurred to them to glance inside. Why should they
look inside a stove that they had bought and were about to sell
again for all its glorious beauty of exterior?

The child still did not feel afraid. A great exaltation had come
to him: he was like one lifted up by his angels.

Presently the two traders called up their porters, and the stove,
heedfully swathed and wrapped and tended as though it were some
sick prince going on a journey, was borne on the shoulders