meat, and she and her husband sat down to make a hearty meal.
But the mother could not forget her little ones; and at last she cried
to her husband:

"Alas! where are our poor children? How they would have enjoyed this
good feast!"

The children, listening at the door, heard this and cried out, "Here we
are, mother; here we are!" and, overjoyed, the mother flew to let them
in and kissed them all round.

Their parents were delighted to have their little ones with them again;
but soon the ten crowns were spent, and they found themselves as badly
off as before. Once more they agreed to leave the children in the
forest, and once again Tom Thumb overheard them. This time he did not
trouble himself very much; he thought it would be easy for him to do as
he had done before. He got up very early the next morning to go and get
the pebbles; but, to his dismay, he found the house door securely
locked. Then, indeed, he did not know what to do, and for a little while
he was in great distress. However, at breakfast the mother gave each of
the children a slice of bread, and Tom Thumb thought he would manage to
make his piece of bread do as well as the pebbles, by breaking it up and
dropping the crumbs as he went.

This time the father and mother took the children still deeper and
farther into the wood, and then, slipping away, left them alone.

Tom Thumb consoled his brothers as before; but when he came to look for
the crumbs of bread, not one of them was left. The birds had eaten them
all up, and the poor children were lost in the forest, with no possible
means of finding their way home.

[Illustration]

Tom Thumb did not lose courage. He climbed to the top of a high tree and
looked round to see if there was any way of getting help. In the
distance he saw a light burning, and, coming down from the tree, he led
his brothers toward the house from which it came.

When they knocked at the door, it was opened by a pleasant-looking
woman, and Tom Thumb told her they were poor children who had lost their
road, and begged her to give them a night's shelter.

"Alas, my poor children!" said the woman, "you do not know where you
have come to. This is the house of an ogre who eats up little boys and
girls."

"But, madam," replied Tom Thumb, "what shall we do? If we go back to the
forest we are certain to be torn to pieces by the wolves. We had better,
I think, stay and be eaten by the ogre."

The ogre's wife had pity on the little