s, though the houses themselves
were like Swiss chalets. It was not dark down here, there was a soft
light about as bright as we have it at summer twilight; and besides
this, each little house had a twinkling blue light hanging above the
front door, like a sign-post. And at the door of each cottage stood one
of the dwarfs, with a little dwarf wife beside him; only, instead of
blue, each little woman was dressed in brown, so that they were rather
less showy than their husbands. They all began bowing as Olive appeared,
and all the little women curtseying, and Olive seemed to understand,
without being told, that she was to walk up the village street to see
all there was to be seen. So on she marched, her blue cloak floating
about her, so that sometimes it reached the roofs of the houses on each
side at the same time.

Olive felt herself rather clumsy. Her feet, which in general she was
accustomed to consider rather neat, and by no means too large for her
age, seemed such great awkward things. If she had put one of them in at
the window of a dwarf house, it would have knocked everything out of its
place.

"Dear me!" thought Olive, "I had no idea _I_ could seem clumsy! I feel
like a great ploughman. I wish I were not so big."

"Yes," said a voice beside her, "it has its disadvantages;" and Olive,
looking down to see who spoke--she had to look down for
everything--caught sight of one of the two dwarfs with whom she had
first spoken. She felt a little ruffled. She did not like this trick of
the dwarf hearing what she thought before she said it.

"Everything has its disadvantages," she replied. "Don't you find
yourself very inconveniently small when you are up in _our_ world?"

"Exactly so," said the dwarf; but he did not seem the least put out.

"They are certainly very good-tempered," said Olive to herself. Then
suddenly a thought struck her.

"Your village is very neat and pretty," she said; "though, perhaps--I
don't mean to be rude, not on any account----"

"No," interrupted the dwarf; "Auntie told you on no account to be rude."

"Auntie!" repeated Olive, in astonishment; "she is not _your_ auntie!"

"On no account," said the dwarf, in the same calm tone, but without
seeming to take in that Olive meant to reprove him.

"It's no use trying to make them understand," said Olive to herself.

"Not the least," said the dwarf; at which Olive felt so provoked that
she could have stamped her feet with irritation. But as