k, with drawers all down the front. These were elaborately carved
in foliage, of which ivy formed the chief part. The nearer end of this
table remained just as it had been, but on the further end a singular
change had commenced. I happened to fix my eye on a little cluster of
ivy-leaves. The first of these was evidently the work of the carver; the
next looked curious; the third was unmistakable ivy; and just beyond it
a tendril of clematis had twined itself about the gilt handle of one of
the drawers. Hearing next a slight motion above me, I looked up, and saw
that the branches and leaves designed upon the curtains of my bed were
slightly in motion. Not knowing what change might follow next, I thought
it high time to get up; and, springing from the bed, my bare feet
alighted upon a cool green sward; and although I dressed in all haste,
I found myself completing my toilet under the boughs of a great
tree, whose top waved in the golden stream of the sunrise with many
interchanging lights, and with shadows of leaf and branch gliding over
leaf and branch, as the cool morning wind swung it to and fro, like a
sinking sea-wave.

After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and looked
around me. The tree under which I seemed to have lain all night was one
of the advanced guard of a dense forest, towards which the rivulet ran.
Faint traces of a footpath, much overgrown with grass and moss, and with
here and there a pimpernel even, were discernible along the right bank.
"This," thought I, "must surely be the path into Fairy Land, which
the lady of last night promised I should so soon find." I crossed the
rivulet, and accompanied it, keeping the footpath on its right bank,
until it led me, as I expected, into the wood. Here I left it, without
any good reason: and with a vague feeling that I ought to have followed
its course, I took a more southerly direction.

CHAPTER III

"Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in
the face.
Never thine eyes behold a tree;
'Tis no sea thou seest in the sea,
'Tis but a disguised humanity.
To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan;
All that interests a man, is man."
HENRY SUTTON.

The trees, which were far apart where I entered, giving free passage
to the level rays of the sun, closed rapidly as I advanced,