Do you suppose someone will call out: 'Tip-tap, tip-tap,
who raps on my door'?"
"Sh-h! I'm hungry enough to eat the roof. Let's ask for a drink of water
so's to see the inside."
Robin did not think it was just nice to deliberately intrude upon the
privacy of this shut-away house but Beryl, not waiting for her approval,
knocked boldly on the heavy old door.
When the door swung open, however, and a beaked-nosed woman, absurdly
like the witch of the fairy story, confronted the girls, Beryl stood
tongue-tied and Robin had to come to the rescue.
"Can we--if you please, we had an accident--I mean, we went for a
walk--oh, _may_ we have a drink of water?" she floundered, fairly
blinking before the sharply piercing eyes of the woman in the door.
"Who is it, Brina?" came from within, whereupon the woman answered in
rapid German, her head turned backward over her shoulder, her hand still
on the doorknob.
"Shame on you, Brina. They are two children--lost, perhaps. Let them
come in."
The room was disappointingly like any other old country-house living
room; scrupulously clean and shining, a wide fireplace aglow with a wood
fire that cast bright splotches of color over the low walls, the faded
rag rugs, the piece-work cushions on the old wooden settle.
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