waited, or playing a little game of hide-and-seek behind
the bushes.

Sometimes, when she hid like this, little Dot would be afraid that she
had lost her Kangaroo, and would run here and there, hunting round
trees, and clusters of ferns, until she felt quite certain she had lost
the kind animal; when suddenly, clean over a big bush, the Kangaroo
would bound into view, landing right in front of her. Then Dot would
laugh, and rush forward, and throw her arms around her friend; and the
Kangaroo, with a quiet smile, would rub her little head against Dot's
curls, and they were both very happy. So, although it was really a
long and rough way to the little creek where the Platypus lived, it did
not seem at all far.

The stream ran at the bottom of a deep gully, that had high rocky
sides, with strangely shaped trees growing between the rocks. But, by
the stream, Dot thought they must be in fairyland; it was so beautiful.
In the dark hollows of the rocks were wonderful ferns; such delicate
ones that the little girl was afraid to touch them. They were so
tender and green that they could only grow far away from the sun, and
as she peeped into the hollows and caves where they grew, it seemed as
if she was being shown the secret store-house of Nature, where she kept
all the most lovely plants, out of sight of the world. A soft carpet
seemed to spring under Dot's feet, like a nice springy mattress, as she
trotted along. She asked the Kangaroo why the earth was so soft, and
was told that it was not earth, but the dead leaves of the tree-ferns
above them, that had been falling for such a long, long time, that no
Kangaroo could remember the beginning.

Then Dot looked up, and saw that there was no sky to be seen, or tops
of trees; for they were passing under a forest of tree-ferns, and their
lovely spreading fronds made a perfect green tent over their heads.
The sunlight that came through was green, as if you were in a house
made of green glass. All up the slender stems of these tall tree-ferns
were the most beautiful little plants, and many stems were twined, from
the earth to their feather-like fronds, with tender creeping ferns--the
fronds of which were so fine and close, that it seemed as if the
tree-fern were wrapped up in a lovely little fern coat. Even crumbling
dead trees, and decaying tree-ferns, did not look dead, because some
beautiful moss, or lichen, or little ferns had clung to them, and made
them more beautiful