said Anna anxiously.

They went back a few steps, looking for her among the bystanders. They
saw her at last a long way off, her handkerchief still round her head
and her long thick hair blowing round her shoulders, rapt in
contemplation of the fiery furnace. Then a shout went up from the people
in the road, and they all ran back into the potato field. Anna and the
princess stood rooted to the spot, clutching each other's hands. Letty
looked round when she heard the shout, and began to run too. The flaming
outer wall of the yard swayed and tottered and then fell outwards with a
terrific crash and crackling, filling the road with a smoking heap of
rubbish, and sending a shower of sparks on a puff of wind after the
flying spectators.

The princess had certainly not run so fast since her girlhood as she did
with Anna towards the spot in the field where they had last seen Letty.
A crowd had gathered round it, they could see, an excited, gesticulating
crowd. But they found her apparently unhurt, sitting on the ground,
surrounded by sympathisers, and with someone's coat over her head. She
looked up, very pale, but smiling apologetically at her aunt. "It's all
gone," she said, pointing to her head.

"What is gone?" cried Anna, dropping on her knees beside her.

"_Ach Gott, die Haare--die herrlichen Haare!_" lamented a woman in the
crowd. The smell of burnt hair explained what had happened.

Anna seized her in her arms. "You might have been killed--you might have
been killed," she panted, rocking her to and fro. "Oh, Letty--who saved
you?"

"Somebody put this beastly thing over my head--it smells of herrings.
Sparks got into my hair, and it all frizzled up. Can't I take this off?
It's out now--and off too."

The princess felt all over her head through the coat, patting and
pressing it carefully; then she took the coat off, and restored it with
effusive thanks to its sheepish owner. There was a murmur of sympathy
from the women as Letty emerged, shorn of those flowing curls that were
her only glory. "_Oh Weh, die herrlichen Haare!_" sighed the women to
one another, "_Oh Weh, oh Weh!_" But the handkerchief tied so tightly
round her head had saved her from a worse fate; she had been an ugly
little girl before--all that had happened was that she looked now like
an ugly little boy.

"I say, Aunt Anna, don't mind," said Letty; for her aunt was crying, and
kissing her, and tying and untying the handkerchief, and arranging and