adually lifting and
revealing the house of the Witch of Ilsenstein. It looked very fine,
with the sun's bright rays upon it; very fine indeed! A little way off
to the left of that queer little house was--an oven. Oh, dreadful! It
was well Haensel and Gretel did not know in the least what that oven
meant. Then, on the other side of the house, was a cage--and heaven!
it was certainly well that they had no idea of what that was for,
either. Then, joining that cage to the house, was a queer-looking
fence of gingerbread, and it looked strangely like little children.

"Oh, what a queer place!" Gretel cried. "And do you smell that
delicious odour? That cottage is made all of chocolate cream!" She was
overcome with joy.

The roof is all covered with Turkish delight,
The windows with lustre of sugar are white
And on all the gables the raisins invite,
And think! All around is a gingerbread hedge.

"Oh, to eat such a cottage!" they cried ecstatically.

"I hear no sound. Let's go inside," Haensel urged.

"No, no! Who knows who may live in that lovely house."

"Well, anyway, it can't do any harm to nibble a little. They can have
it repaired next baking day," he persisted.

"Maybe that is true,--and it does look too good to leave"; so Haensel
reached out and broke a little piece of the house-corner off.

Nibble, nibble, mousekin,
Who's nibbling at my housekin?

a voice called from within.

"Good gracious! Did you hear that?" he whispered, dropping the corner
of the house. Gretel picked it up, hesitatingly.

"It's most awfully good," she declared, but at that very minute came
the voice again:

Nibble, nibble, mousekin,
Who's nibbling at my housekin?

"Maybe that is the voice of the sweety maker," Haensel suggested, all
the same a good deal scared. And so they went on nibbling at a bit of
the fence and then at the house-corner, until they became so full of
good things that they began to laugh and caper about in high spirits.
But while all this fun was going on, the upper part of the door opened
and the old witch stuck her head out. Then slowly and softly, out she
crept with a rope in her hand, and getting behind the children she
suddenly threw it over Haensel's head. When he turned and saw her he
was frightened almost into fits.

"Let me go, let me go!" he howled, while the witch only laughed
hideously at the two and, drawing them closer to her, she began to pat
their heads an