Page 137 - Adventures in shadow-land

big as he was, hopped so lightly. Still, she suc­
ceeded in crossing the field after him, though

when they reached a firmer soil, Eva was fairly
ashamed of her dress, on which there was so much

mud ; and when they came to a little pool of dear
water, in which she saw herself reflected, she

wondered for a moment who that dirty little girl
could be; and then she laughed to think how

very different this little mud-stained figure was
from the white-robed maiden who bad passed

without a soil or a spot on her dress through the
forests of Shadow-Land.

At last they came in sight of a little hut, built
of rough stones, with a huge toad-stool for a roof,

directly in the middle of a field, which was full of
little pools of water. The field was surrounded

by a strange fence, in which the posts were all
toad-stools, and the rails all spider-webs. On

each toad-stool a green frog was sitting, and in
every web there hung either a red or a black

spider. When they came to this fence, the toad,
after going up to one of the green frogs and
croaking something to him, turned round with­

out so much as saying “ good-bye” to Eva, and