"Yes, mynheer."
Both were laughing. But Peter's smile changed to a look of puzzled surprise when he saw Hans kneel down by the canal and put on the wooden skates.
"Very queer," muttered Peter shaking his head as he turned to go into the house; "why in the world don't the boy wear his new ones?"
XLI
THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
The sun had gone down quite out of sight when our hero—with a happy heart but with something like a sneer on his countenance, as he jerked off the wooden "runners"—trudged hopefully toward the tiny hut-like building, known of old as the Idiot's cottage.
Duller eyes than his would have discerned two slight figures moving near the doorway.
That gray, well-patched jacket and the dull blue skirt covered with an apron of still duller blue, that faded, close-fitting cap, and those quick little feet in their great boat-like shoes, they were Gretel's of course. He would have known them anywhere.