"Tell me," said Doris to her little neighbor,--"tell me, are you always
so gay here? Do you never quarrel? and have you really lived in this
hillside all this long, long time,--ever since the Piper first came to
Hamelin five hundred years ago?"

"Ja, wohl," replied the girl, nodding her flaxen head. "We are always
so happy; we never quarrel; therefore we are ever young, and what thou
callest five hundred years are as nothing to us. Ah! we are well cared
for here, and the Piper teaches us, and we him; and we play and frolic
and sometimes travel, 'und so geht's.'"

"But what can you teach _him_?" asked Doris, wondering.

"Ah! many things. We teach him to tune his fife to the sounds of our
laughter, so that when he travels he may pipe new songs. Ah! thou
foolish one, thou thoughtest him the _wind_. And we teach him to be as
a little child, and then he keeps young always, and his heart is warm
and glad. And we teach him-- But thou shalt see;" and she nodded
again, and smiled into Doris's wondering eyes.

The hall they were in was long and wide, and hung all about the walls
were the most beautiful pictures, that seemed to shift and change every
moment into something more strange and lovely. And as Doris looked she
seemed to know what the pictures were,--and they were only reflections
of the children's pure souls that shone out of their eyes.

"How beautiful!" she thought.

But the Piper was singing to them now; and as she drew nearer him she
saw he had two little tots in his arms, and was putting them to sleep