gretel and katrine.
“I think I have been asleep,” she said.
“I think you have,” said Dame Donk.
Just then a loud knock was heard at the door, a head was poked in, then another, and still another. The cottage was fast filling up. There stood, first of all, poor, pale, frightened Marie, holding a large bundle in her arms, Jan with another smaller one, Gretel carrying a pair of shoes, and one of the sisters, completely filling up the doorway with her ample proportions, last of all.
It appears that as soon as the fog had begun to clear, the good Dame Donk had despatched a boy from a neighboring cottage to let them know where Katharine was, and that her wardrobe would need replenishing.
The excitement on finding the child safe and sound may be better imagined than described. How she was kissed, cried, and laughed over, what questions were asked and not answered, as she was taken into an adjoining room and arrayed in a complete suit of Gretel’s clothes, even to the klompen, for, alas! her French shoes were now in no condition to be worn, the pretty blue frock torn and stained and hopelessly wet, the hat with its dainty plume crushed and useless; indeed, every article she had worn looked only fit for the rag-bag.
Gretel was so much smaller than Katharine that the clothes were a very tight fit, the skirt which hung round Gretel’s ankles reaching just below Katharine’s knees, and it was a funny little figure that stepped back into the room—no longer a fashionably dressed New York maiden, but a golden-haired child of Holland, even to the blue eyes, sparkling now with fun and merriment.
“But didn’t you bring a cap for me, Marie?” she asked in a grieved tone.