gigantic jewels sticking
there; and presently the light increased, without seeming to come
from anywhere in particular; and the great vault overhead seemed to
soar aloft, until only a misty brightness was visible, like the sky at
sunset-time, when it is feathered with gorgeous clouds. It was a new
and marvellous country, with gold and silver filagree instead of
foliage, and fields of emerald, and rivers of sapphires, and distant
mountains of amethyst. By and by the cat came to two lofty pillars of
plain white alabaster, and there he stopped.

'Now, Hilda,' he said, 'you must go the rest of the way alone. Pass
between those pillars, and then you will be in the kingdom of the
Gnomes. Ask the first Gnome you meet to show you the place where the
King ploughs; and when you have found him, ask him where the Golden
Ivy-seed is. But be very careful to do everything that he bids you, no
matter how strange or disagreeable it may be; for, if you disobey him,
your brother Hector cannot be saved.'

Though Hilda did not much like the idea of going on through this
strange land all by herself, still, since it was for Hector's sake,
she never dreamed of refusing; only she made up her mind to do
everything the King bade her, whatever happened. So off she started,
and after passing between the alabaster pillars she came to a road on
which the gold-dust lay an inch thick; for it seldom rains in the
centre of the earth. Pretty soon she met a little brown Gnome, running
along on all-fours, and turning somersaults, as all Gnomes do.

'Will you show me the place where the King ploughs?' asked Hilda.

'What do you want of him?' asked the Gnome.

'I want to ask him to tell me where the Golden Ivy-seed is,' Hilda
replied.

'He ploughs in the emerald field on the other side of the mountain of
amethyst,' said the Gnome; 'but, unless you can go on all-fours and
turn somersaults better than you seem able to do, you will never get
on in this country.'

But Hilda had never walked on all-fours, much less turned somersaults,
since she was a baby a year old; so she trudged along the dusty golden
road just as she was, and all the Gnomes who met her threw somersaults
and said:

'See how upright she walks! She will never come to anything!'

The road was very long, the amethyst mountain was very far away, and
Hilda was very tired by the time she arrived at the emerald field. But
there was the field at last, and there was the King of the Gnomes on