special care. Mark what
I say, child. Is it a small thing to be the ward of a guardian who is not
only Almighty but true above all truth?" And those words have followed me
through all my life till this very hour.

CHAPTER II.

Thus passed our childhood, as I have already said, in very great
happiness; and by the time that my brothers had left the leading strings
far behind them, and were studying their 'Donatus', Cousin Maud was
teaching me to read and write, and that with much mirth and the most
frolicsome ways. For instance, she would stamp four copies of each letter
out of sweet honey-cakes, and when I knew them well she gave me these
tiny little A. B. C. cakes, and one I ate myself, and gave the others to
my brothers, or Susan, or my cousin. Often I put them in my satchel to
carry them into the woods with me, and give them to my Cousin Gotz's
favorite hound or his cross-beak; for he himself did not care for sweets.
I shall have many things to tell of him and the forest; even when I was
very small it was my greatest joy to be told that we were going to the
woods, for there dwelt the dearest and most faithful of all our kinsmen:
my uncle Waldstromer and his family. The stately hunting-lodge in which
he dwelt as head forester of the Lorenzerwald in the service of the
Emperor and of our town, had greater joys for me than any other, since
not only were there the woods with all their delights and wonders, but
also, besides many hounds, a number of strange beasts, and other pastimes
such as a town child knows little of.

But what I most loved was the only son of my uncle and aunt Waldstromer,
for whose dog I kept my cake letters; for though Cousin Gotz was older
than I by eleven years, he nevertheless did not scorn me, but whenever I
asked him to show me this or that, or teach me some light woodland craft,
he would leave his elders to please me.

When I was six years old I went to the forest one day in a scarlet velvet
hood, and after that he ever called me his little "Red riding-hood," and
I liked to be called so; and of all the boys and lads I ever met among my
brothers' friends or others I deemed none could compare with Gotz; my
guileless heart was so wholly his that I always mentioned his name in my
little prayers.

Till I was nine we had gone out into the forest three or four times in
each year to pass some weeks; but after this I was sent to school, and as
Cousin Maud took it much to heart, because she kne