The next day she writes to her mother--“The crowd of children surrounded me already. There are children from Berlin and Westphalia, Saxony and Styria, from all parts of Germany. They have built me a fortress, and I tell them fairy tales whilst they sit crowded around me on the sand. I am like the ratcatcher of Hameln--all children run after me.” And so it continues, day after day, for three weeks. It was a lovely picture when, on each morning, the children hurried down to the shore to ornament the sand-hill on which the Queen was to take her place with flowers, to throw flowers on her lap and bestrew her path with them. She sat there like a fairy queen, encircled by the children. Whichever way she turned, her eyes rested on the eager eyes of children and their joyful faces. A little fair-haired child held her parasol over her whilst she read to them, or told of the hills and rivers of Roumania which she had turned into living pictures in her fairy tales. The deep stillness of the children listening with eager attention, was only broken by the sound of the waves or the calls of the sea-gulls which were poised overhead. When the royal lady ascended the steep steps which led from the shore of an evening, she walked alone, only accompanied by the crowd of children, who carried after her the numberless floral offerings which had been showered upon her in her seat on the sand or in her tent in the course of the day. Then the Queen often followed the little path that led to the cemetery, that “Home of the Homeless.” Here she decorated with her choicest flowers those graves on whose cross only the words “Stranded hither” were engraved, with the date. After her departure from Sylt, the Queen had a slab of granite placed opposite the entrance with a few verses which point to the Home above, where all names shall stand in the Book of Life. Her departure from Westerland on the 18th of September was quite touching. Queen Elizabeth had won all hearts during her stay there. Many hundreds of people had assembled at the station to get a last sight of her. The road which led to her garlanded carriage was bestrewn with leaves and flowers, whilst grown up people and children stood on each side. With grateful looks they offered her the last flowers, and the Queen could only advance one step at a time, as there were so many to take leave of. Weeping children pressed to her and weeping women kissed her hands. Enthusiastic cheers for the royal poetess resounded as the train left the station, and did not cease till it had entirely disappeared. The people of Sylt have a superstition that if a wreath is thrown into the sea whilst one is thinking of loved ones who are absent, they will return one day if the waves carry it back to the shore. When the Queen was removed from their sight the children had committed their wreaths to the foam-crowned waves, and had dried their tears and shouted for joy when the flowers were thrown up on the shore in safety!