or whether it lay in shadow.

When Eliza saw her own face she was terrified--so brown and ugly was
she; but when she wetted her little hand and rubbed her eyes and her
forehead, the white skin gleamed forth again. Then she undressed and
went down into the fresh water; a more beautiful King's daughter than
she was could not be found in the world. And when she had dressed
herself again and plaited her long hair, she went to the bubbling
spring, drank out of the hollow of her hand, and then wandered far
into the wood, not knowing whither she went. She thought of her dear
brothers, and thought that Heaven would certainly not forsake her. It is
God who lets the wild apples grow, to satisfy the hunger. He showed her
a wild apple tree, with the boughs bending under the weight of the
fruit. Here she took her midday meal, placing props under the boughs,
and then went into the darkest part of the forest. There it was so still
that she could hear her own footsteps, as well as the rustling of every
dry leaf which bent under her feet. Not one bird was to be seen, not one
ray of sunlight could find its way through the great dark boughs of the
trees; the lofty trunks stood so close together that when she looked
before her it appeared as though she were surrounded by sets of palings
one behind the other.

The night came on quite dark. Not a single glow-worm now gleamed in the
grass. Sorrowfully she lay down to sleep. Then it seemed to her as if
the branches of the trees parted above her head, and mild eyes of angels
looked down upon her from on high.

When the morning came, she did not know if it had really been so or if
she had dreamed it.

She went a few steps forward, and then she met an old woman with berries
in her basket, and the old woman gave her a few of them. Eliza asked the
dame if she had not seen eleven Princes riding through the wood.

"No," replied the old woman, "but yesterday I saw eleven swans swimming
in the river close by, with golden crowns on their heads."

And she led Eliza a short distance farther, to a declivity, and at the
foot of the slope a little river wound its way. The trees on its margin
stretched their long leafy branches across toward each other, and where
their natural growth would not allow them to come together, the roots
had been torn out of the ground, and hung, intermingled with the
branches, over the water.

[Illustration: "THE WHOLE DAY THEY FLEW ONWARD THROUGH THE AIR"]

Eliza said