Page:Zodiac stories by Blanche Mary Channing.pdf/324

Rh and one filled with his own beautiful handiwork.

The dining-room was panelled in wood carved by himself, the stair-rail was a great, twisting, twining wild-grape vine. But most charming of all was the stand for the tall hall-lamp. This was no less than, a goat, poised in act to spring from a rock—the lamp between its graceful horns.

Yet Hansel had realized but one half of his dream. He had the house, but now he must bring his old parents into it; and one sunny morning he set forth with a glad heart for the great forest.

"Yes," he said to himself, "I have left it too long already. I must lose no more time. Life is short, and one cannot always have a father and a mother."

He reached the little village on the border of the forest late in the evening, and slept at the well-remembered inn where, as a homesick child, he had cried himself to sleep so long ago.