continues its lonely cry.  Gretel is overcome by fear for a moment, and Hansel, too, succumbs to fright when he sees a figure approaching through the mist.  But it is not a goblin, as the children think—­only the Sandman, a little gray, stoop-shouldered old man, carrying a bag.  He smiles reassuringly and sings a song of his love for children, while he sprinkles sleep-sand in the eyes of the pair.  The second part of his song introduces another significant phrase into the score; it is the “Theme of Promise,” to which the Sleep Fairy sings the assurance that the angels give protection and send sweet dreams to good children while they are asleep:—­

[Musical excerpt]

“Sandman has been here,” says Hansel, sleepily; “let us say our evening blessing.”  They kneel and repeat the prayer to the melody which has been called the “Prayer Theme,” then go to sleep in each other’s arms.  All has been dark.  Now a bright light pierces the mist, which gathers itself into a cloud that gradually takes the shape of a staircase reaching apparently from heaven to earth.  The orchestra plays a beautiful and extended piece of music, of which the principal melodic material is derived from the themes of “Prayer” and “Promise,” while seven pairs of angels descend the cloud-stairs and group themselves about the little sleepers, and a golden host extends upward to the celestial abode.  By this time the scene is filled with a glory of light, and the curtain closes.

The greater part of the dramatic story is told in, the third act.  The opening of the curtain is preceded by a brief instrumental number, the principal elements of which are a new theme:—­

[Musical excerpt]

and the “Theme of Fulfilment.”  The significance of the latter in this place is obvious:  the promised benison to the children has been received.  The former theme is a pretty illustration of what has already been said of Humperdinck’s consistent devotion to the folk-song spirit in his choice of melodies.  The phrase has an interrogatory turn and is, in fact, the melody of the mysterious question which comes from the house of the Witch a few minutes later, when the children help themselves to some of the toothsome material out of which the magic structure is built:—­

[Musical excerpt—­“Nibble, nibble, mouskin, Who’s nibbling at my housekin?”]

Simple as this little phrase is, it is yet a draught from a song-game that comes nigh to being universal.  No phrase is more prevalent among nursery songs than that made up of the first six notes.  The original German song itself has come down to American and English children, and enthusiastic folklorists see in it a relic of the ancient tree worship and an invocation of Frau Holda, the goddess of love and spring of our Teutonic ancestors.  It is the first phrase of the German, “Ringel, ringel, reihe,” which our children know as “Ring around a rosy.”  It was an amiable conceit of the composer’s