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200 I'll first sleep a bit." So she laid herself down among the corn and went fast asleep. By and by Hans came home, but no Grettel was to be seen, and he said to himself, "What a clever wife I have! she works so hard that she does not even come home to her dinner!" Evening came and still she did not come; then Hans set off to see how much of the corn was reaped, but there it all stood untouched, and Grettel lay fast asleep in the middle. So he ran home and got a string of little bells and tied them quietly round her waist, and went back and set himself down on his stool and locked the house door.

At last Grettel woke when it was quite dark, and as she rose up the bells jingled around her every step she took. At this she was greatly frightened, and puzzled to tell whether she was really Grettel or not. "Is it I, or is it not?" said she as she stood doubting what she ought to think. At last, after she had pondered awhile, she thought to herself, "I will go home and ask if it is I or not; Hans will know." So she ran to the house door, and when she found it locked she knocked at the window and cried out, "Hans! is Grettel within?" "She is where she ought to be, to be sure," said Hans; "Oh, dear then!" said she, frightened, "this is not I!" Then away she went and knocked at the neighbours' doors; but when they heard her bells rattling no one would let her in, and so at last off she ran back to the field again.