on her heart. She was too good and too innocent for
sorcery to have any power over her.

When the wicked queen saw this, she rubbed Eliza's face with walnut
juice, so that she was quite brown; then she tangled her beautiful hair
and smeared it with disgusting ointment until it was quite impossible to
recognize her.

The king was shocked, and declared she was not his daughter. No one but
the watchdog and the swallows knew her, and they were only poor animals
and could say nothing. Then poor Eliza wept and thought of her eleven
brothers who were far away. Sorrowfully she stole from the palace and
walked the whole day over fields and moors, till she came to the great
forest. She knew not in what direction to go, but she was so unhappy and
longed so for her brothers, who, like herself, had been driven out into
the world, that she was determined to seek them.

She had been in the wood only a short time when night came on and she
quite lost the path; so she laid herself down on the soft moss, offered
up her evening prayer, and leaned her head against the stump of a tree.
All nature was silent, and the soft, mild air fanned her forehead. The
light of hundreds of glowworms shone amidst the grass and the moss like
green fire, and if she touched a twig with her hand, ever so lightly,
the brilliant insects fell down around her like shooting stars.

All night long she dreamed of her brothers. She thought they were all
children again, playing together. She saw them writing with their
diamond pencils on golden slates, while she looked at the beautiful
picture book which had cost half a kingdom. They were not writing lines
and letters, as they used to do, but descriptions of the noble deeds
they had performed and of all that they had discovered and seen. In the
picture book, too, everything was living. The birds sang, and the people
came out of the book and spoke to Eliza and her brothers; but as the
leaves were turned over they darted back again to their places, that all
might be in order.

When she awoke, the sun was high in the heavens. She could not see it,
for the lofty trees spread their branches thickly overhead, but its
gleams here and there shone through the leaves like a gauzy golden mist.
There was a sweet fragrance from the fresh verdure, and the birds came
near and almost perched on her shoulders. She heard water rippling from
a number of springs, all flowing into a lake with golden sands. Bushes
grew thickly round