est brook is telling all those
delightful tales." "And you don't even love the flowers," Christlieb
chimed in; "do you, master?"

At this the tutor's face became of even a deeper cherry-brown than it
was usually; and he beat with his hands about him, crying, "What
stupid, ridiculous nonsense you are talking! Who has put such trash in
your heads? Who ever heard that woods and streams had got the length of
engaging in rational conversation? Neither is there anything in the
chirping of birds. I like flowers well enough when they are nicely
arranged in a room in glasses. They smell then; and one doesn't require
a scent-bottle. But there are no proper flowers in woods."

"But don't you see those dear little lilies of the valley, peeping up
at you with such bright, loving eyes?" Christlieb said.

"What? what?" the tutor screamed. "Flowers--eyes? Ha, ha! Nice 'eyes'
indeed! The useless things haven't even got what you would call a
smell!" With which Master Ink bent down and plucked up a handful of
them, roots and all, and chucked them away into the thickets. To the
children it seemed, almost, as if they heard a cry of pain pass through
the wood. Christlieb could not help bitter tears, and Felix gnashed his
teeth in anger. Just then, a little siskin went fluttering close past
the tutor's nose, alighted on a branch, and began a joyous song. "That
is a mockingbird, I think!" said the tutor; and, taking up a stone, he
threw it at the poor bird, which it struck, and silenced into death; it
fell from the green branch to the ground.

Felix could restrain himself no longer. "You horrible Tutor Ink," he
cried, "what had the bird done to you that you should strike it dead?
Ah, where are you, you beautiful Stranger Child? Oh come! only come!
Let us fly far, far away. I cannot stay beside this horrible creature
any longer. I want to go to your home with you." Christlieb chimed in,
sobbing and weeping bitterly, crying, "Oh, thou darling child, come to
us, come to us! Rescue us, rescue us! Tutor Ink is killing us, as he is
killing the flowers and the birds."

"What do you mean by the Stranger Child?" Tutor Ink asked. But at that
instant there came a louder whispering and rustling amongst the bushes,
mingled with melancholy, heart-breaking tones, as if of muffled bells
tolling in the far distance. In a shining cloud, which came sailing
over above them, they saw the beautiful face of the Stranger Child, and
presently it came wholly into