low yet more
movingly, nothing made itself seen. They crept home in silence and
sadness. But their parents were very glad to see them, having been
exceedingly anxious about them during the storm. The baron said, "It is
a good thing that you are home again; for I confess I was afraid that
Tutor Ink was still hanging about somewhere in the wood, and on your
track."

Felix related all that had happened in the wood. "That is all stupid
nonsense," their mother said. "If you are to go dreaming all that sort
of stuff in the wood, you shan't be allowed to go there any more.
You'll have to stop at home." And indeed--although, when they begged
that they might be allowed to go back there, their mother yielded--it
so came about that they didn't care very much about doing it. Alas! the
Stranger Child was never there; and whenever they got far into the
wood, or reached the bank of the pond, they were jeered at by the
harper, the sportsman, and the doll, who cried to them, "Stupid things!
Senseless creatures! You must do without playthings. You didn't know
how to treat us clever, cultivated people--stupid things, senseless
creatures that you are!"

This being unendurable, the children preferred staying at home.

CONCLUSION.

"I don't know," said the baron to his lady one day, "what it is that
has been the matter with me for the last few days. I feel so queer and
so odd, that I could almost fancy Tutor Ink has put some spell upon me.
Ever since the moment when I hit him that crack with the fly-flapper,
all my limbs have felt like bits of lead."

And the baron did really grow weaker and paler, day by day. He gave up
walking about his grounds; he no longer went bustling about the house,
cheerily ordering matters as he used to do; he sat, hour after hour, in
deep meditation, and would get Felix and Christlieb to repeat to him,
over and over again, all about the Stranger Child; and when they spoke
eagerly of all the marvels connected with the Stranger Child, and of
the beautiful brilliant kingdom which was its home, he would give a
melancholy smile, and the tears would come to his eyes.

But Felix and Christlieb could not reconcile themselves to the
circumstance that the Stranger Child went on keeping aloof from them,
leaving them exposed to the nasty behaviour of those troublesome
puppets in the thicket and the duck pond, on account of which they did
not like now to frequent the wood at all.

But o