e of the green, slippery turf, on her hands and knees, half trembling
with fear, and half laughing to think of that droll-looking fat fellow,
with the big bell-mouth, and the yellow breeches, and the grass-green
military jacket, turned up with buff and embroidered with gems, and the
bright golden eye that had so frightened her before, and wondering in
her little heart if he would show himself again; and singing all the
while, as she crept nearer and nearer, "Nobody asked you, sir, she said!
sir, she said! nobody asked you, sir, she said!" till at last she had
got near enough to look over, and see the little fishes there tumbling
about by dozens, and playing bo-peep among the flowers that grew
underneath the bank, and were multiplied by thousands in the clear water,
when, all at once, she felt the turf giving way, and she put out her
arms and screamed for her mother. Goody gracious! how she did scream!
and then something answered from the flowing waters underneath, and from
the flowering trees overhead, with a mournful sweet sound, like wailing
afar off, "_Thrice! thrice!_" and the flashing waters swelled up, saying,
"_Thrice! thrice!_" and the flowering branch of the tree swept over the
turf, and the sound was the same, "_Thrice! thrice!_" and in she went,
headlong, into the deepest part of the pool, screaming with terror, and
calling on her mother to the last: poor mother!

Well and so--when she came to herself, where do you think she was? Why,
she was lying out in the warm summer air, on a green bank, all tufted
with cowslips and violets and clover-blossoms, with a plenty of
strawberries underneath her feet, and the bluest water you ever saw all
round her, murmuring like the rose-lipped sea-shells; and the air was
full of singing-birds, and there was a little old woman looking at her,
with the funniest cap, and a withered face not bigger than you may see
when you look at the baby through the big end of a spyglass: the cap was
a morning-glory, and it was tied underneath the chin with bleached
cobweb, and the streamers and bows were just like the colors you see in
a soap-bubble.

"Goody gracious! where am I now?" said little Ruth.

"Yes, my dear, that's my name," said the little old woman, dropping a
low courtesy, and then spinning round two or three times, and squatting
down suddenly, so as to make what you call a cheese.

"Why, you don't mean to say that's your real name," whispered little
Ruth.

"To be sure it i