The two little ones, who had never left his side, were ready immediately to strike out once more.
They soon reached the hill and the castle, which was bathed in the soft evening light, lay openly before them.

A hushed silence reigned about the gray building and the old pine trees under the tower, whose branches lay trailing on the ground.

For years no human hand had touched them.
Where the blooming garden had been wild bushes and weeds covered the ground.
The mother and uncle, settling down on a tree-trunk, looked in silence towards the castle, while the children were hunting for strawberries on the sunny incline.
"How terribly deserted and lonely it all looks," Uncle Philip said after a while.

"Let us go back.

When the sun is gone, it will get more dreary still." "Don't you notice anything, Philip ?" asked his sister, taken up with her own thoughts.