But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and looked at each other, and one of the younger ones tittered and then put her hand before her mouth. In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, horror-stricken eyes. "Most of the horses were got out in time," said the princess, taking Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, "and they say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much better ones." "But the time lost--they can't be built in a day----" "The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us go on a little--we shall be scorched to cinders here." Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. "I do not want my trees destroyed," he said to Dellwig, with whom in the stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; "they are not insured." He had watched the stables go with an impassiveness that struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. "It is a great nuisance," Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an adequate expression of feelings. "They are well insured, I believe?" said Dellwig. "Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place." "They were certainly rather--rather dilapidated," said Dellwig, eyeing him. "They were very dilapidated," said Axel.