I must have looked at him puzzled enough, for no one had ever esteemed me fortunate, unless it were Cousin Maud or the Waldstromers in the forest; and Master Paul must have observed my amazement, for he went on.  “Yea, a happy child art thou; for so are all babes, maids or boys, who come into the world after their father’s death.”  As I gazed into his face, no less astonished than before, he laid the gold knob of his cane against his nose and said:  “Remember, little simpleton, the good God would not be what he is, would not be a man of honor—­God forgive the words—­if he did not take a babe whom He had robbed of its father before it had seen the light or had one proof of his love under His own special care.  Mark what I say, child.  Is it a small thing to be the ward of a guardian who is not only Almighty but true above all truth?” And those words have followed me through all my life till this very hour.

CHAPTER II.

Thus passed our childhood, as I have already said, in very great happiness; and by the time that my brothers had left the leading strings far behind them, and were studying their ‘Donatus’, Cousin Maud was teaching me to read and write, and that with much mirth and the most frolicsome ways.  For instance, she would stamp four copies of each letter out of sweet honey-cakes, and when I knew them well she gave me these tiny little A. B. C. cakes, and one I ate myself, and gave the others to my brothers, or Susan, or my cousin.  Often I put them in my satchel to carry them into the woods with me, and give them to my Cousin Gotz’s favorite hound or his cross-beak; for he himself did not care for sweets.  I shall have many things to tell of him and the forest; even when I was very small it was my greatest joy to be told that we were going to the woods, for there dwelt the dearest and most faithful of all our kinsmen:  my uncle Waldstromer and his family.  The stately hunting-lodge in which he dwelt as head forester of the Lorenzerwald in the service of the Emperor and of our town, had greater joys for me than any other, since not only were there the woods with all their delights and wonders, but also, besides many hounds, a number of strange beasts, and other pastimes such as a town child knows little of.

But what I most loved was the only son of my uncle and aunt Waldstromer, for whose dog I kept my cake letters; for though Cousin Gotz was older than I by eleven years, he nevertheless did not scorn me, but whenever I asked him to show me this or that, or teach me some light woodland craft, he would leave his elders to please me.

When I was six years old I went to the forest one day in a scarlet velvet hood, and after that he ever called me his little “Red riding-hood,” and I liked to be called so; and of all the boys and lads I ever met among my brothers’ friends or others I deemed none could compare with Gotz; my guileless heart was so wholly his that I always mentioned his name in my little prayers.