s to be rid of you_--because there wasn't
enough to eat at home."

[Illustration: "You are Hansel and Grettel."]

Hansel and Grettel looked at each other with round eyes. "It is true,"
they replied in unison. "But to think it should have got about
already! Who are you?"

Everychild addressed himself to Hansel--who, by the way, was a fat boy
with wooden shoes and a tiny homespun jacket and trousers of the same
stuff, the trousers being very floppy about the ankles. "I am
Everychild," he said. "And if I were you I'd not try to go home to
such a father and mother. You know, they still had half a loaf left."

"At least," said Hansel, "I'd like to go home until that half a loaf is
gone!"

For a second Grettel looked at her brother as if she really could not
think of a suitably severe rebuke. "Our poor father and mother!" she
exclaimed. "No doubt they thought we should find food in the forest,
or that we should encounter travelers who'd have a bite to spare."

"At any rate," said Everychild, "it's no use your searching any more.
You're looking for the crumbs you dropped, so you'd find the way home.
But I should think you could guess the birds had eaten them all up!"

Hansel turned to Grettel, his eyes more round than ever. "It must be
true!" he exclaimed.

"Where you made your mistake was in not dropping pebbles, the way you
did the first time--though I suppose you couldn't have got the pebbles,
being locked up in your room the night before. Anyway, it's no use
your trying to go back. Even if you found the way, the same thing
would happen again. Your father made a great mistake when he agreed to
lose you the first time, simply because your mother asked him to. You
know what the book says: 'If a man yields once he's done for.' You'd
much better go along with me."

Hansel became all curiosity at once. "Where to?" he asked.

Everychild undertook to reply quite frankly; but all of a sudden he
became dumb. It had seemed to him that he knew very well where he was
going. Even now he felt that the answer ought to be perfectly simple.
Just the same, he could not think of a single word!

Then he heard a voice behind him. "He has set forth on a quest of
Truth!" said the voice.

That was it, of course! He turned gratefully--and there was the Masked
Lady! She seemed to be smiling to herself, as if she had thought of
something which amused her. But on the whole her manner was really
friendly and serious.