anikin, "Do not hurt us, sir--and will you tell us who you are?"

I shut the children's peepers--sh!
And guard the little sleepers--sh!
For dearly I do love them--sh!
And gladly watch above them--sh!
And with my little bag of sand,
By every child's bedside I stand;
Then little tired eyelids close,
And little limbs have sweet repose;
And if they are good and quickly go to sleep,
Then from the starry sphere above
The angels come with peace and love,
And send the children happy dreams, while watch they keep.

All the while the little sand-man was telling them who he was, the
children got sleepier and sleepier and nodded upon each other's
shoulders.

"The sand-man was here?" little Haensel asked, trying to rouse a bit.

"I guess so," said Gretel; "let us say our prayers," and so they
folded their hands, and said a little prayer to the fourteen angels
which guard little children. They prayed to the two angels who should
stand at their head, to the two at their feet, two upon their right
hand and two upon the left, and two should cover them warm, and two
should guard them from harm, and two should guide them one day to
Heaven; and so they sank to sleep.

As they slept, a beautiful light broke through the mist, which rolled
up into a glittering staircase down which those angels came, two and
two. They all grouped about Haensel and Gretel as they had been prayed
to do; and as they silently took their places the night grew dark,
the trees and birds all slept, and Haensel and Gretel were safe until
the morning.

ACT III

The night had passed, the angels had disappeared again in the mist
which still hung over the forest at the back, and now as dawn broke,
the dew-fairy came out of the mist as the manikin and the angels had
done; and from a little blue bell she shook the dewdrops over the
children's eyes. Just as they began to stir, away ran the dew-fairy,
and when they were quite wide awake they found the sun rising and
themselves all alone.

"Haensel, where are we?" little Gretel asked, not recalling all that
had happened to them since the day before. "I hear the birds
twittering high in the branches. We certainly are not in our beds at
home."

"No--but I had a fine dream," Haensel answered--"that the angels were
here looking after us all night, the entire fourteen. But look there!"
he cried, pointing behind them. The mist was gr