to your father and mother!'

Their faces grew grave at once.

'H'sh! We _can't_,' whispered the eldest. 'There isn't anything left.'

'All gone,' a boy echoed, and he puffed through pursed lips. 'Like
_that_, uncle told me. Both cows too.'

'And my own three ducks,' the boy on the girl's lap said sleepily.

'So, you see, we came here.' The elder girl leaned forward a little,
caressing the child she rocked.

'I--I don't understand,' said Frau Ebermann 'Are you lost, then? You
must tell our police.'

'Oh no; we are only waiting.'

'But what are you waiting _for?_'

'We are waiting for our people to come for us. They told us to come here
and wait for them. So we are waiting till they come,' the eldest
girl replied.

'Yes. We are waiting till our people come for us,' said all the others
in chorus.

'But,' said Frau Ebermann very patiently--'but now tell me, for I tell
you that I am not in the least angry, where do you come from? Where do
you come from?'

The five gave the names of two villages of which she had read in the
papers,

'That is silly,' said Frau Ebermann. 'The people fired on us, and they
were punished. Those places are wiped out, stamped flat.'

'Yes, yes, wiped out, stamped flat. That is why and--I have lost the
ribbon off my pigtail,' said the younger girl. She looked behind her
over the sofa-back.

'It is not here,' said the elder. 'It was lost before. Don't you
remember?'

'Now, if you are lost, you must go and tell our police. They will take
care of you and give you food,' said Frau Ebermann. 'Anna will show you
the way there.'

'No,'--this was the six-year-old with the smile,--'we must wait here
till our people come for us. Mustn't we, sister?'

'Of course. We wait here till our people come for us. All the world
knows that,' said the eldest girl.

'Yes.' The boy in her lap had waked again. 'Little children, too--as
little as Henri, and _he_ doesn't wear trousers yet. As little as
all that.'

'I don't understand,' said Frau Ebermann, shivering. In spite of the
heat of the room and the damp breath of the steam-inhaler, the aspirin
was not doing its duty.

The girl raised her blue eyes and looked at the woman for an instant.

'You see,' she said, emphasising her statements with her ringers,
'_they_ told _us_ to wait _here_ till _our_ people came for us. So we
came. We wait till our people come for us.'

'That is silly again,' said Frau Ebermann. 'It is no good for you to
wai