alaces! Let us fly along as fast as we can, and we shall get to them."
Christlieb saw the castles too, and forgot her fear, as she was not
looking down, this time, but up before her.

"Those are my beloved air-castles," the Stranger Child said. "But I
don't think we shall get any further to-day.".

Felix and Christlieb seemed to be in a dream, and could not make out at
all how they came to find themselves, presently, with their father and
mother.

CONCERNING THE STRANGER CHILD'S HOME.

In the most beautiful part of the wood beside the brook, between
whispering bushes, the Stranger Child had set up a most glorious tent,
made of tall, slender lilies, glowing roses, and tulips of every hue;
and beneath this tent Felix and Christlieb were sitting with the
Stranger Child, listening to the forest-brook as it went on whispering
the strangest things imaginable.

"I'll tell you, darling boy," Felix said, "I can't properly understand
all that he, there, is saying; but I somehow feel that _you_ could tell
me, clearly and distinctly, what it is that he goes on murmuring. But
most of all I should like you to tell me where it is that you come
from, and where it is that you go away to, so fast, so fast, that we
never can make out how you do it."

"Do you know, sweetest girl," said Christlieb, "our mother thinks you
are the schoolmaster's boy, Gottlieb."

"Hold your tongue, stupid thing!" Felix cried. "Mother has never seen
this darling boy, or she wouldn't have talked about the schoolmaster's
Gottlieb. But come now, tell me where it is that you live, dear boy;
fur we want to go and see you at your home in the winter time, when it
storms and snows, and nobody can trace a track in the woods."

"Yes, yes!" said Christlieb. "Tell us, like a darling, where your home
is; and all about your father and mother, and more than all, what your
own name is."

The Stranger Child looked very thoughtfully at the sky, almost
sorrowfully, and gave a deep sigh. Then, after some moments of silence,
the Stranger Child said, "Ah, my dears, why must you ask about my home?
Is it not enough for you that I come every day and play with you? I
might tell you that my home lies behind those distant hills, which are
like dim, jagged clouds. But though you were to travel day after day,
for ever and ever, till you were standing on those hills, you would
always see other, and other ranges of hills, further and further away,
and my home wou