Dear Denis,—Here is a story that I found in an old German poem calledthe Nibelungenlied. The poem is full of strange adventure, adventureof both tiny dwarf and stalwart mortal.
Some of these adventures will fill this little book, and already I cansee you sitting in the nursery as you read them.
The door is opened but you do not look up. 'Denis! Denis!' You arecalled, but you do not hear, for you are not really in the nursery anylonger.
You have wandered away to Nibelheim, the home of the strange littlepeople of whom you are reading, and you have ears only for the harshvoices of the tiny Nibelungs, eyes only for their odd, wrinkled faces.
Siegfried is the merry hero of the Nibelungenlied. I wonder will youthink him as brave as French Roland or as chivalrous as your Englishfavourite, Guy of Warwick? Yet even should you think the German herobrave and chivalrous as these, I can hardly believe you will read andre-read this little book as often as you read and re-read the volumeswhich told you about your French and English heroes.—Yoursaffectionately,
MARY MACGREGOR.