Oh! that case with the terrible instruments. The assistant lifted them. Gretel who had been peering, with brimming eyes, through the crack of the closet door, could remain silent no longer. She rushed frantically across the apartment, seized her hood, and ran from the cottage. XXXIII GRETEL AND HILDA It was recess-hour. At the first stroke of the school-house bell, the canal seemed to give a tremendous shout, and grow suddenly alive with boys and girls. The sly thing, shining so quietly under the noonday sun, was a kaleidoscope at heart, and only needed a shake from that great clapper to start it into dazzling changes. Dozens of gaily clad children were skating in and out among each other, and all their pent-up merriment of the morning was relieving itself in song and shout and laughter. There was nothing to check the flow of frolic. Not a thought of school-books came out with them into the sunshine. Latin, Arithmetic, Grammar, all were locked up for an hour in the dingy schoolroom. The teacher might be a noun if he wished, and a proper one at that, but _they_ meant to enjoy themselves. As long as the skating was as perfect as this, it made no difference whether Holland were on the North Pole or the Equator; and, as for Philosophy, how could they bother themselves about inertia and gravitation and such things, when it was as much as they could do to keep from getting knocked over in the commotion. In the height of the fun, one of the children called out: "What is that?" "What? Where?" cried a dozen voices. "Why--don't you see? That dark thing over there by the idiot's cottage." "I don't see anything," said one. "I do," shouted another, "it's a dog!" "Where's any dog?" put in a squeaky voice that we have heard before--"It's no such thing--it's a heap of rags." "Pooh! Voost," retorted another gruffly, "that's about as near the fact as you ever get; it's the goose-girl, Gretel, looking for rats." "Well, what of it?" squeaked Voost; "isn't _she_ a bundle of rags, I'd like to know?" "Ha! ha! Pretty good for you, Voost! You'll get a medal for wit yet, if you keep on." "You'd get something else, if her brother Hans were here. I'll warrant you would!" said a muffled up little fellow, with a cold in his head. As Hans was _not_ there, Voost could afford to scout the insinuation. "Who cares for _him_, little sneezer? I'd fight a dozen like him any day, and you in the bargain." "You would! would you? I'd like to catch you at it," and, by way of proving his words, the sneezer skated off at the top of his speed. Just then a general chase after three of the biggest boys of the school was proposed,--and friend and foe, frolicsome as ever, were soon united in a common cause. Only one of all that happy throng remembered the dark little form by the idiot's cottage. Poor, frightened Gretel! She was not thinking of them, though their merry laughter floated lightly toward her, making her feel like one in a dream.