mmer sun was still sleeping an Elf came up from
below, tickling an oak-tree's foot, skipping like a flea, and
whispering mischievously to himself.

"With little legs straddling,
He dances about--
Pretends to be waddling--
Then leaps with a flout.
Now he stops--
Now he hops--
Now cautiously trips
On tiptoe
And sliptoe
He scuttles and skips;
Along the grass gliding,
Half dancing, half sliding."

There was a pretty white cottage on the edge of the wood, and, with
everybody quiet within, it also seemed asleep. Toward this cottage
skipped the Elf.

He was a little fellow, scarce five inches tall. His body was as brown
as the bark of a tree, all mixed with green streaks and tarnished gold.
You could hardly see him as he went stooping along against the green
leaves and the brown branches.

When he got to the sleeping cottage he climbed up the lattice, and
poked his sharp little nose into every crevice. He pulled open a loose
shutter, tapped once or twice on the windows, and when he found a broken
pane--in he went!

In this cottage lived a girl named Toody. She was not very big, as you
can believe when I tell you that all the shrubs in the garden were
taller than she, and all the flowers nodded over her head. In this same
house lived Toody's cousins, Kitty, and Crocus, and Twig, and Tiny--only
Tiny was a little dog, not a little boy. And here, too, lived
Grandmother Grey.

"In spectacles, tucker and flower'd-chintz gown,
Who always half smiled when trying to frown."

Grandmother Grey took care of them all. At five o'clock that morning she
woke up. "What noise do I hear below?" she cried. "It is daylight, but
nobody is up I know."

So Grandmother Grey threw off her skullcap and bandage, and nightcap
with all its ribbons, bows and strings, and called out loudly: "Come,
children, jump up quickly! There's a rat in the dairy! Come down with
me."

Then Toody, and Crocus, and Kitty, and Twig, in their nightgowns and
nightcaps, ran scrambling and laughing down stairs, with Tiny barking
and tumbling about between their legs. They crept through the parlor,
where all the shutters were closed but one. Like cautious Indians they
went silently on, Dame Grey and the children in single file, each
holding on to the one before by the tail of her nightgown.

Into the dairy they went, and stared about. Then they huddled together
in fear, for behind a milk-jug, und