Page:Zodiac stories by Blanche Mary Channing.pdf/323

306 another year, it passed, and the next, and the next, and he did not go.

He wrote, and, his letters were the great pleasure of their life—the lonely, uneventful life of the great forest.

He told of the rapid progress he was making—of the orders for work which began to come in—of the praise he had received; of medals and prizes.

He travelled in other countries; his letters bore postmarks of Italy, France, England—America.

The good couple were much distressed that their son should go to so far-off and dangerous a place as the last, which they had heard was a land of wild beasts and Indians. They were very glad when they heard of his return to Germany.

Eight years had now slipped away since they had seen him.

And in the summer of this eighth year, Hansel realized his dream of a house of his own—a house fit for a great artist,