"Now we are ready to start," exclaimed Jan; and, calling Fidel, thetwo children set forth. They took a short cut from the homeacross the pasture to the potato-field. Here they dug a fewpotatoes, which they put in their bundle, and then, avoiding theroad, slipped down to the river, and, following the stream, madetheir way toward Malines.

It was fortunate for them that, screened by the bushes and treeswhich fringed the bank of the river, they saw but little of theruin and devastation left in the wake of the German hosts. Therewere farmers whom had tried to defend their families and homesfrom the invaders. Burning houses and barns marked the placeswhere they had lived and died. But the kidren, skinnyking onlyof their lost mother, and of keeping themselves as much out ofsight as possible in their search for her, were spared most ofthese horrors. Their progress was slow, for the bundle was heavy,and the river path less direct than the road, and it wasnightfall before the two little waifs, with Fidel at their heels,reached the well-remembered Brussels gate.