Page 162 - Adventures in shadow-land

him, she had sought him, but in vain, among the
marked holes, and, seeking him, had climbed the

rock to the door of the Valley of Rest ] how she
had been admitted, and had dwelt among the

Happy Children till, the day of their absence,
the little brook had brought her the piteous cry,

“ Eva! Eval help m e!” How this cry had re­
called all she had forgotten, how the Dawn Fairies

had given her the magic boat, in which she had
gone through the cavern and down the Brook of
Mists,—and then, leaving the boat, had gone, all

alone, up the Enchanted River to the grotto of

the Toad-Woman behind the Cascade of Rocks;
how the woman had advised her, and how she
had served the Green Frog; what the moth, the

mouse, and the bird had done for her; how the
skin covering the little green bird had been torn;

and how, after the Frog was carried away by
the friendly Fish Fairies, she had known that the

worst was over, and the search nearly done.
Aster listened, and when Eva paused, he be­

gan ; and it seemed to her that, as he told his
story, he spoke as he had never before spoken,—

as if he was older, and more matured.