on, farther
and farther, now and then smiling quietly to herself, and her bright
little head shining in the darkness almost as if the sun was lighting
it up. She went a good way, but there was nothing new or different. It
was always the dark forest and the gloomy trees. But at last she saw,
close to her, behind the trees, the dark sides of the great mountain,
and she knew that she must be near the closed-up door."

Illustration:
"She hunted about among the leaves and branches till she found a
little silver knob."--P. 83.

"Oh!" said Ted, "wasn't her afraid of bears?"

"No," said Mabel, "she wasn't afraid of anything. She went quietly up to
the door and stood before it. It was barred and barred with iron, and it
was so long since it had been opened that the ivy and those sorts of
plants had grown all over it, creeping round the iron bars. It looked as
if it hadn't been opened for a hundred years, and I daresay it hadn't
been. But Sunny knew what to do. She hunted about among the leaves and
branches till she found a little silver knob--her grandfather had told
her about it; and the queer thing was that though the iron bars were
quite rusted over so that you wouldn't have known what they were, the
little silver knob was still bright and shining as if it had been
cleaned every day always."

"Wif plate-powder," said Ted, who was very learned about such matters,
as he was very fond of watching the servants at their work.

"Yes," said Mabel, "just as if it had been cleaned with plate-powder.
Well, Sunny pressed this little knob, and a minute or two after she
heard a clear tinkling bell. That was just what her grandfather had
told her she would hear, so she stood quite still and waited. In a
little while she seemed to hear a sound as of something coming along
the passage, and suddenly the top part of the door--at least it was
more like a window cut in the door--opened, and a voice, though she
could not see anybody, called out, 'Have you come to stay?' This too was
what her grandfather had told her she would hear, so she knew what to
say, and she answered 'Yes.' Then the voice said again, 'At what price?'
and Sunny answered, 'Sunshine for the forest.' But her heart began to
beat faster when the door slowly opened and she saw that she must enter
the dark passage. There was no one to be seen, even though the voice
had sounded quite near, so Sunny just walked on, looking about her,
for gradually as she went farther, eit