‘If you know it is wrong, that makes it much worse,’ said Frau Ebermann.

‘Oh yes; much worse,’ they assented cheerfully, till the smallest boy changed his smile to a baby wail of weariness.

‘When will they come for us?’ he asked, and the girl at the head of the row hauled him bodily into her square little capable lap.

‘He’s tired,’ she explained.  ’He is only four.  He only had his first breeches this spring.’  They came almost under his armpits, and were held up by broad linen braces, which, his sorrow diverted for the moment, he patted proudly.

‘Yes, beautiful, dear,’ said both girls.

‘Go away!’ said Frau Ebermann.  ‘Go home to your father and mother!’

Their faces grew grave at once.

‘H’sh!  We can’t,’ whispered the eldest.  ‘There isn’t anything left.’

‘All gone,’ a boy echoed, and he puffed through pursed lips.  ’Like that, uncle told me.  Both cows too.’

‘And my own three ducks,’ the boy on the girl’s lap said sleepily.

‘So, you see, we came here.’  The elder girl leaned forward a little, caressing the child she rocked.

‘I—­I don’t understand,’ said Frau Ebermann ’Are you lost, then?  You must tell our police.’

‘Oh no; we are only waiting.’

‘But what are you waiting for?’

’We are waiting for our people to come for us.  They told us to come here and wait for them.  So we are waiting till they come,’ the eldest girl replied.

‘Yes.  We are waiting till our people come for us,’ said all the others in chorus.

‘But,’ said Frau Ebermann very patiently—­’but now tell me, for I tell you that I am not in the least angry, where do you come from?  Where do you come from?’

The five gave the names of two villages of which she had read in the papers,

‘That is silly,’ said Frau Ebermann.  ’The people fired on us, and they were punished.  Those places are wiped out, stamped flat.’

’Yes, yes, wiped out, stamped flat.  That is why and—­I have lost the ribbon off my pigtail,’ said the younger girl.  She looked behind her over the sofa-back.

‘It is not here,’ said the elder.  ’It was lost before.  Don’t you remember?’

’Now, if you are lost, you must go and tell our police.  They will take care of you and give you food,’ said Frau Ebermann.  ’Anna will show you the way there.’

’No,’—­this was the six-year-old with the smile,—­’we must wait here till our people come for us.  Mustn’t we, sister?’

’Of course.  We wait here till our people come for us.  All the world knows that,’ said the eldest girl.

‘Yes.’  The boy in her lap had waked again.  ’Little children, too—­as little as Henri, and he doesn’t wear trousers yet.  As little as all that.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Frau Ebermann, shivering.  In spite of the heat of the room and the damp breath of the steam-inhaler, the aspirin was not doing its duty.