white calf, who frisked and
bounded along as if it thought it was fine fun to be in the world on
this lovely morning. Now wasn't that a queer thing, children, queerer
than all the fairy stories you have read? for this story is quite true,
you must know!

* * * * *

It was an exceptionally fine Sunday, and as father had come down to
spend the week-end, mother and the children were in the seventh heaven
of joy. It was not possible to go to church; for the nearest town was
two hours' walk away, and would be partly over fields that were exposed
to the heat of the midday sun. So father and mother and their two little
daughters went to the great woodland cathedral.

The service was on the Stellerskuppe; surely no one could wish for a
more beautiful place of worship. Mountain after mountain ranged in the
distance, some with rounded or knolled heads, others rising to a peak.
Lottchen called the most pointed one Mesuvius, because she always forgot
the "V."

As the children sat there and sang hymns, with their white Sunday frocks
on, mother fancied that eyes were peering at them from out the forest
depths. If they were merely those of the gentle deer, or if stranger
creatures still were watching them as if fascinated, she did not know:
she felt there were lookers-on. There is the old story of the God Pan
who played so divinely that all living things came to listen to him.
Perhaps there may be a stirring at times in the souls of the mysterious
dwellers in the forest that makes them yearn for immortality and gives
them a fuller sense of existence. So that all the woodland sang too at
that Sunday service.

On Sunday afternoon, father and mother wanted to go for a longer walk
than usual; but the lazy children petitioned to be left behind.

"You will promise not to go near the pond," said mother. "Remember it is
Sunday, and you have your best frocks on; you must not romp or climb
trees."

"O no, mother, of course not," said Trudel. "We'll stay in the garden
and promise to be very good."

When father and mother returned from their walk, the first thing they
saw was Lottchen staggering along with a stand of empty beer-bottles.

"Whatever are you doing, Lottchen?"

"Oh, mother, there are such heaps of people here this afternoon, and
there are not enough waitresses to serve them; so Trudel and I are
helping. Trudel has got such a lot of tips already; she has bought
chocolate with the money. Do t