ite of themselves.

It was like a race in a dream. Their feet seemed not to touch the
ground. The leaves rustled--no, the children chattered as they
fluttered--no, hurried along. Doris could catch little sentences here
and there; but they seemed to be in a strange tongue, and she did not
understand. But by and by she grew very familiar with the sounds, and,
strangely enough, she found she could make out the meaning of the queer
words.

"It 's German," she thought; "I know they're talking German;" and so
she listened very attentively.

"Sie ist eine Fremde," she heard one say to another; "sie gehoert nicht
zu uns,"--which she immediately knew meant: "She is a stranger; she
doesn't belong to us."

"Nein," replied the other; "aber sie scheint gut und brav zu sein." At
which Doris smiled; she liked to be thought "good and sweet."

On and on they went; and after a time things began to have a very
foreign look, and this startled Doris considerably.

"We can't have crossed the ocean," she thought. But when she asked her
nearest neighbor where they were and whether they had crossed the
Atlantic, he smiled and said,--

"Ja, gewiss; wir sind in Deutschland. Wir gehen, schon, nach
Hamelin,"--which rather puzzled Doris; for she found they had crossed
the sea and were in Germany and going to Hamelin.

"It must be the Piper's wonderful way," she thought.

But she did not feel at all homesick nor tired nor afraid; for the
Piper's fife seemed to keep them all in excellent spirits, and she
found herself wondering what she would do when they came to the fabled
hill-side,--for she never doubted they would go there. On they went,
faster and faster, the Piper behind them playing all the while.

She saw the broad river; and all the children shouted, "Die Weser."

One little flaxen-haired girl told her they were nearing Hamelin.

"It used to have a big wall around it, with twenty towers and a large
fort; but that was all blown up by the French, years and years ago,"
she explained.

"But it has a chain-bridge," she remarked proudly,--"a chain-bridge
that stretches quite across the Weser."

Doris was just about to say: "Why, that's nothing! We have a huge
suspension bridge in New York;" but the words seemed to twist
themselves into a different form, and the memory of home to melt away,
and she found herself murmuring, "Ach, so?" quite like the rest of the
little Teutons.

But at length the fife ceased playing, and th