Catch me now!" And she darted
away, shivering no longer, but with cheeks all aglow and eyes sparkling
with fun.

Hans sprang to his feet and started in brisk pursuit, but it was no easy
thing to catch Gretel. Before she had traveled very far, her skates,
too, began to squeak.

Believing that discretion was the better part of valor, she turned
suddenly and skated into her pursuer's arms.

"Ha! ha! I've caught you!" cried Hans.

"Ha! ha! I caught YOU," she retorted, struggling to free herself.

Just then a clear, quick voice was heard calling, "Hans! Gretel!"

"It's the mother," said Hans, looking solemn in an instant.

By this time the canal was gilded with sunlight. The pure morning air
was very delightful, and skaters were gradually increasing in numbers.
It was hard to obey the summons. But Gretel and Hans were good children;
without a thought of yielding to the temptation to linger, they pulled
off their skates, leaving half the knots still tied. Hans, with his
great square shoulders and bushy yellow hair, towered high above his
blue-eyed little sister as they trudged homeward. He was fifteen years
old and Gretel was only twelve. He was a solid, hearty-looking boy, with
honest eyes and a brow that seemed to bear a sign GOODNESS WITHIN just
as the little Dutch zomerhuis *{Summer house} wears a motto over its
portal. Gretel was lithe and quick; her eyes had a dancing light in
them, and while you looked at her cheek the color paled and deepened
just as it does upon a bed of pink and white blossoms when the wind is
blowing.

As soon as the children turned from the canal, they could see their
parents' cottage. Their mother's tall form, arrayed in jacket and
petticoat and close-fitting cap, stood, like a picture, in the crooked
frame of the doorway. Had the cottage been a mile away, it would still
have seemed near. In that flat country every object stands out plainly
in the distance; the chickens show as distinctly as the windmills.
Indeed, were it not for the dikes and the high banks of the canals, one
could stand almost anywhere in middle Holland without seeing a mound or
a ridge between the eye and the "jumping-off place."

None had better cause to know the nature of these same dikes than Dame
Brinker and the panting youngsters now running at her call. But before
stating WHY, let me ask you to take a rocking-chair trip with me to that
far country where you may see, perhaps for the first time, some curious
thi