But here a new astonishment awaited
him. Nestling before him in a green amphitheater lay a little wooden
farm-yard and outbuildings, which irresistibly suggested that it had
been recently unpacked and set up from a box of Nuremberg toys. The
symmetrical trees, the galleried houses with preternaturally glazed
windows, even the spotty, disproportionately sized cows in the
white-fenced barnyards were all unreal, wooden and toylike.

Crossing a miniature bridge over a little stream, from which he was
quite prepared to hook metallic fish with a magnet their own size,
he looked about him for some real being to dispel the illusion. The
mysterious chasseur had disappeared. But under the arch of an arbor,
which seemed to be composed of silk ribbons, green glass, and pink
tissue paper, stood a quaint but delightful figure.

At first it seemed as if he had only dispelled one illusion for another.
For the figure before him might have been made of Dresden china--so
daintily delicate and unique it was in color and arrangement. It was
that of a young girl dressed in some forgotten medieval peasant garb
of velvet braids, silver-staylaced corsage, lace sleeves, and helmeted
metallic comb. But, after the Dresden method, the pale yellow of her
hair was repeated in her bodice, the pink of her cheeks was in the
roses of her chintz overskirt. The blue of her eyes was the blue of her
petticoat; the dazzling whiteness of her neck shone again in the
sleeves and stockings. Nevertheless she was real and human, for the
pink deepened in her cheeks as Hoffman's hat flew from his head, and she
recognized the civility with a grave little curtsy.

"You have come to see the dairy," she said in quaintly accurate English;
"I will show you the way."

"If you please," said Hoffman, gaily, "but--"

"But what?" she said, facing him suddenly with absolutely astonished
eyes.

Hoffman looked into them so long that their frank wonder presently
contracted into an ominous mingling of restraint and resentment. Nothing
daunted, however, he went on:

"Couldn't we shake all that?"

The look of wonder returned. "Shake all that?" she repeated. "I do not
understand."

"Well! I'm not positively aching to see cows, and you must be sick of
showing them. I think, too, I've about sized the whole show. Wouldn't
it be better if we sat down in that arbor--supposing it won't fall
down--and you told me all about the lot? It would save you a heap of
trouble and keep you