sometimes less. And there were more surprises in store for the guests.
When they had made progress enough to understand a great deal, they took
much pleasure in listening to the songs which the women sang to the
small children and the stories they told to the older ones. And these
stories were not new to them! They were the same songs and stories that
had been used for years by their mothers and grandmothers to amuse the
children, and had always been known in the country. There was the little
girl and the wolf, and the sleeping beauty, and the wicked stepmother,
and the girl whom the prince knew by her tiny foot, and many, many more.
The shipwrecked guests wondered much, and at last came to the conclusion
that they and their hosts were distant cousins; for they remembered
hearing from some aged men that they were themselves descended from a
branch of a very old family--one of many which at different times left
the old stock, long, long ago, and now, surely, here were the
descendants of another branch.

Another time, and in another country, there had been a great battle. A
brave army, led by a famous general, had come into a rich and powerful
country, to make its people subject to their own king. But the people,
too, were brave; besides, they fought for their liberty and their homes,
and that made them doubly strong. They had driven the enemy from before
their capital city after an obstinate siege and had made many prisoners.
Both nations were civilized and enlightened; therefore there was no bad
feeling after the fighting was over, and the prisoners were treated more
like guests, waiting for the signing of the treaty of peace, when they
would be exchanged. The sick and the wounded were taken care of at the
hospitals; as to the others, the private soldiers were placed in
well-kept barracks, and the officers were quartered in private families
and left free "_on parole_," _i.e._, on their promise not to try to
escape. Friendships were formed, and the unwilling guests employed their