eless creatures, she had run away to look for somebody to help
her. I asked her what they were like. She said, like great men, made of
wood, without knee-or elbow-joints, and without any noses or mouths or
eyes in their faces. I laughed at the little maiden, thinking she was
making child's game of me; but, although she burst out laughing too, she
persisted in asserting the truth of her story."

"'Only come, knight, come and see; I will lead you.'

"So I armed myself, to be ready for anything that might happen, and
followed the child; for, though I could make nothing of her story, I
could see she was a little human being in need of some help or other. As
she walked before me, I looked attentively at her. Whether or not it was
from being so often knocked down and walked over, I could not tell, but
her clothes were very much torn, and in several places her white skin
was peeping through. I thought she was hump-backed; but on looking more
closely, I saw, through the tatters of her frock--do not laugh at me--a
bunch on each shoulder, of the most gorgeous colours. Looking yet more
closely, I saw that they were of the shape of folded wings, and were
made of all kinds of butterfly-wings and moth-wings, crowded together
like the feathers on the individual butterfly pinion; but, like them,
most beautifully arranged, and producing a perfect harmony of colour and
shade. I could now more easily believe the rest of her story; especially
as I saw, every now and then, a certain heaving motion in the wings,
as if they longed to be uplifted and outspread. But beneath her scanty
garments complete wings could not be concealed, and indeed, from her own
story, they were yet unfinished.

"After walking for two or three hours (how the little girl found her
way, I could not imagine), we came to a part of the forest, the very
air of which was quivering with the motions of multitudes of resplendent
butterflies; as gorgeous in colour, as if the eyes of peacocks' feathers
had taken to flight, but of infinite variety of hue and form, only that
the appearance of some kind of eye on each wing predominated. 'There
they are, there they are!' cried the child, in a tone of victory mingled
with terror. Except for this tone, I should have thought she referred
to the butterflies, for I could see nothing else. But at that moment
an enormous butterfly, whose wings had great eyes of blue surrounded by
confused cloudy heaps of more dingy colouring, just like a