fell off the haycart, and was a good deal shaken, but
not hurt. So she was taken indoors, and the haymakers worked hard and
cleared the field, all but a few cocks which were left till the
morning.

The sun set, the dew fell, the moon rose. It was a lovely night. Amelia
peeped from behind the blinds of the drawing-room windows, and saw four
haycocks, each with a deep shadow reposing at its side. The rest of the
field was swept clean, and looked pale in the moonshine. It was a
lovely night.

"I want to go out," said Amelia. "They will take away those cocks
before I can get at them in the morning, and there will be no more
jumping and tumbling, I shall go out and have some fun now."

"My dear Amelia, you must not," said her mamma; and her papa added, "I
won't hear of it." So Amelia went up-stairs to grumble to Nurse; but
Nurse only said, "Now, my dear Miss Amelia, do go quietly to bed, like
a dear love. The field is all wet with dew. Besides, it's a moonlight
night, and who knows what's abroad? You might see the fairies--bless us
and sain us!--and what not. There's been a magpie hopping up and
down near the house all day, and that's a sign of ill-luck."

"I don't care for magpies," said Amelia; "I threw a stone at that one
to-day."

And she left the nursery, and swung down-stairs on the rail of the
banisters. But she did not go into the drawing-room; she opened the
front door and went out into the moonshine.

It was a lovely night. But there was something strange about it.
Everything looked asleep, and yet seemed not only awake but watching.
There was not a sound, and yet the air seemed full of half-sounds. The
child was quite alone, and yet at every step she fancied some one
behind her, on one side of her, somewhere, and found it only a rustling
leaf or a passing shadow. She was soon in the hayfield, where it was
just the same; so that when she fancied that something green was moving
near the first haycock she thought very little of it, till, coming
closer, she plainly perceived by the moonlight a tiny man dressed in
green, with a tall, pointed hat, and very, very long tips to his shoes,
tying his shoestring with his foot on a stubble stalk. He had the most
wizened of faces, and when he got angry with his shoe, he pulled so wry
a grimace that it was quite laughable. At last he stood up, stepping
carefully over the stubble, went up to the first haycock, and drawing
out a hollow grass stalk blew upon it till his che