her arms.  That was better than to stand in a great hall of a great city, cold and empty, even though wise men came to gaze and throngs of fools gaped, passing with flattering words.  Where I go now I know not; but since I go from that humble house where they loved me, I shall be sad and alone.  They pass so soon—­those fleeting mortal lives!  Only we endure—­we the things that the human brain creates.  We can but bless them a little as they glide by:  if we have done that, we have done what our masters wished.  So in us our masters, being dead, yet may speak and live.”

Then the voice sank away in silence, and a strange golden light that had shone on the great stove faded away; so also the light died down in the silver candelabra.  A soft, pathetic melody stole gently through the room.  It came from the old, old spinet that was covered with the faded roses.

Then that sad, sighing music of a bygone day died too; the clocks of the city struck six of the morning; day was rising over the Bayerischenwald.  August awoke with a great start, and found himself lying on the bare bricks of the floor of the chamber; and all the bric-a-brac was lying quite still all around.  The pretty Lady of Meissen was motionless on her porcelain bracket, and the little Saxe poodle was quiet at her side.

He rose slowly to his feet.  He was very cold, but he was not sensible of it or of the hunger that was gnawing his little empty entrails.  He was absorbed in the wondrous sight, in the wondrous sounds, that he had seen and heard.

All was dark around him.  Was it still midnight or had morning come?  Morning, surely; for against the barred shutters he heard the tiny song of the robin.

Tramp, tramp, too, came a heavy step up the stair.  He had but a moment in which to scramble back into the interior of the great stove, when the door opened and the two dealers entered, bringing burning candles with them to see their way.

August was scarcely conscious of danger more than he was of cold or hunger.  A marvellous sense of courage, of security, of happiness, was about him, like strong and gentle arms enfolding him and lifting him upward—­upward—­upward!  Hirschvogel would defend him.

The dealers undid the shutters, scaring the red-breast away; and then tramped about in their heavy boots and chatted in contented voices, and began to wrap up the stove once more in all its straw and hay and cordage.

It never once occurred to them to glance inside.  Why should they look inside a stove that they had bought and were about to sell again for all its glorious beauty of exterior.

The child still did not feel afraid.  A great exaltation had come to him:  he was like one lifted up by his angels.