would be _dreadful_!"

Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke. Mr Squirrel looked at her with
his bright eyes, twisted round suddenly, like a cat trying to catch its
own tail, and offered her another nut.

"O, Mr Squirrel, _do_," she said again.

He offered her a third nut, and then he whistled shrilly; it sounded
more like a baby crying than a whistle. Then to her surprise, as she
looked down the wood path, Hansi saw a troop of little men, such as you
see on Christmas cards in Germany, with red caps and green jackets and
wooden shoes turned up at the toes. "Real Heinzelmen and no mistake,"
thought Hansi delightedly, "they can help me, if anyone can." She
counted them, they were seven in number, like Snowdrop's dwarfs. They
made quite a noise as they marched up in order, whistling a merry tune.
When they saw Hansi, they took off their red caps, and their white hair
flew about them like a mist, till Hansi could hardly see them any more.
The squirrel screamed and shouted at them, and they answered him; but
Hansi could not understand at first what it was all about. She thought
they must be talking English; she knew a lady who lived near them, and
who could only talk English, poor thing. All of a sudden the earth
trembled--was it an earthquake? Hansi held tight on to the fir-tree,
though its needles hurt her hands. All she saw was the seven little men
disappearing into the ground down a long slide such as firemen use, when
they are called suddenly from sleep, and are carried by a new mechanical
apparatus direct from one floor to the other. The earth closed up again,
and Hansi thought it must be all a dream; but in two seconds they were
back again with silver hatchets and silver pails. With the hatchets they
immediately began to hack away at the tree. They made tremendous
efforts, and became quite red in the face. The last moment before it was
finally felled, the squirrel bounded off, and tossed a nut to Hansi, who
caught it cleverly in her pinafore.

"Dear little men," she said, "may I have the tree? Will you bring it
home for me, and I will give you all my Christmas cake? But I have
nothing to hang on it, and make it pretty," she continued. The dwarfs
began to chatter again like so many girls, all trying to say the same
thing at once. Then they marched along, dragging the tree with them.

"O, Mr Dwarf, that's the wrong way home, I'm sure," said Hansi. But she
followed them all the same. They came to where a crystal st