It was after dinner that the tragedy happened. The children had all started out for a walk. Before they had gone more than a mile from the house the fog settled all around them--so dense, so thick, blotting out everything, that they could not see more than a step ahead. They were not frightened, however, as all they had to do was to turn round and go straight ahead toward home. The children took one another's hands at Gretel's direction, stretching themselves across the road, Katharine, who held Gretel's hand, being at one end of the line. They walked on slowly along the dike for a short time, talking busily, though not able to see where they were going, when suddenly Katharine felt her feet slipping. In trying to steady herself she let go of Gretel, gave a wild clutch at the air, and then rolled, rolled, right down a steep bank, and, splash! into a pool of water at the bottom. For a moment she lay half stunned, not knowing what had happened to her; then, as her sense came, "Oh," thought she, "I must be killed, or drowned, or something!" She tried to call "Gretel," but her voice sounded weak and far off, and she could see nothing. Slowly she crawled out of the pool, only to plunge, splash! into another. She felt, oh, so cold, wet, and bruised! "I must have rolled right down the dike," she thought. "If I could find it, I might climb up again." She got up and tried to walk, but sank to her ankles in water at every step. She was a little lame from her fall, and soaked from head to foot. Her clothes hung around her most uncomfortably when she tried to walk. But, if she had to crawl on hands and knees, she must find the house; so, plunging, tumbling, rising again, she crawled in and out of ditches, every minute getting more cold and miserable. But on she went, shivering and sore, every moment wandering farther from her friends, who were out searching all along the bottom of the dike. After what seemed to her a long time, she came bump up against something hard. She did not know what it was, but she could have jumped for joy, if her clothes had not been so heavy to hear a voice suddenly call out in Dutch "What's that? Who has hit against my door? Ach! where in the world have you come from?" Then in a considerably milder tone: "Ach! the little one! and she is English. How did you get here, dear heart?" "I--I--fell down the dike. I have--lost--everybody. Oh, how shall I ever get back to father?" answered Katharine in her very poor Dutch. "But tell me, little one, where you came from--ach! so cold and wet!" "I was spending the day with Marie and Gretel--and--Jan--and we were walking on the dike when the fog came on; then I fell, and could not find my way--" "Gretel and Jan--could they be Juffrouw Van Dyne's children?" "Yes, yes," eagerly; "that is where I was. Oh, _can_ you take me back, dear, dear juffrouw?"