"Do you see that light over there, away off in the distance?" asked
Hans. "It comes from a charcoal-pit. I can hear the voices of the
men at their work."

"I shouldn't like to stay out in the dark woods all the time and make
charcoal," answered his sister. "I should get lonesome and long for
the sunlight."

"It isn't very easy work, either," said Hans. "After the trees have
been cut down, the pits have to be made with the greatest care, and
the wood must be burned just so slowly to change it into charcoal. I
once spent a day in the forest with some charcoal-burners. They told
such good stories that night came before I had thought of it."

"I can see the village ahead of us," said Bertha, joyfully.

A few minutes afterward, the children were running up the stone steps
of their own home.

"We had such a good time," Hans told his mother, while Bertha went to
Gretchen and gave her some cakes she had brought her from the
coffee-party.

"I'm so sorry you couldn't go," she told her sister.

"Perhaps I can next time," answered Gretchen. "But, of course, we
could not all leave mother when she had so much work to do. So I
just kept busy and tried to forget all about it."

"You dear, good Gretchen! I'm going to try to be as patient and
helpful as you are," said Bertha, kissing her sister.

CHAPTER V.

THE BEAUTIFUL CASTLE

"Father's coming, father's coming," cried Bertha, as she ran down the
steps and out into the street.

Her father had been away for two days, and Hans had gone with him.
They had been to Heidelberg. Bertha and Gretchen had never yet
visited that city, although it was not more than twenty miles away.

"Oh, dear, I don't know where to begin," Hans told the girls that
evening.

"Of course, I liked to watch the students better than anything else.
The town seems full of them. They all study in the university, of
course, but they are on the streets a good deal. They seem to have a
fine time of it. Every one carries a small cane with a button on the
end of it. They wear their little caps down over their foreheads on
one side."

"What colour do they have for their caps, Hans?" asked Gretchen.

"All colours, I believe. Some are red, some blue, some yellow, some
green. Oh, I can't tell you how many different kinds there are. But
they were bright and pretty, and made the streets look as though it
must be a festival day."

"I have heard that the students fight a good many duel