? We should only
smash them up and destroy them again. I'll tell you what it is,
Christlieb. Mother is not far wrong, I suspect. The playthings were all
right enough. But we didn't know how to play with them. And that's
because we don't know anything about the 'sciences,' as they call
them."

"You're quite right, Felix, dear," Christlieb said; "if we knew the
'sciences' all by heart, as those dressed-up cousins of ours do, we
should still have your harp-man and your sportsman; and my poor doll
would not be at the bottom of the duck-pond. Poor things that we are!
Ah! we know nothing about the 'sciences'!"

And therewith Christlieb began to sob and cry bitterly, and Felix
joined her in so doing. And they both howled and lamented till the wood
re-echoed again, crying, "Poor unfortunate children that we are! we
know nothing of the 'sciences.'"

But suddenly they ceased, and asked one another in amazement--

"Do you see, Christlieb?" "Do you hear, Felix?"

From out the deepest shades of the dark thicket which lay before the
children, a wonderful luminousness began to shine, playing like
moonlight over the leaves, which trembled in ecstasy. And through the
whispering trees there came a sweet musical tone, like that which we
hear when the wind awakens the chords slumbering within a harp. The
children felt a sense of awe come over them. All their vexation had
passed away from them; but tears of a sweet, unknown pain rose to their
eyes.

As the radiance streamed brighter through the bushes, and the
marvellous music-tones grew louder and louder, the children's hearts
beat high: they gazed eagerly at the brightness, and then they saw,
smiling at them from the thicket, the face of the most beautiful child
imaginable, with the sun beaming on it in all its splendour.

"Oh, come to us!--come to us, darling child!" cried Christlieb and
Felix, as they stretched their arms with indescribable longing towards
the beautiful creature. "I am coming!--I am coming!" a sweet voice
cried from the bushes; and then, as if borne on the wings of the
morning breeze, the Stranger Child seemed to come hovering over to
Christlieb and Felix.

HOW THE STRANGER CHILD PLAYED WITH FELIX AND CHRISTLIEB.

"I thought I heard you, out of the distance, crying and lamenting,"
said the Stranger Child, "and then I was very sorry for you. What is
the matter, you dear children?--what is it you want?"

"Ah," Felix said, "we didn't quite know what