from behind them. Huge mouths opened and
shut, long arms waved about trying to catch anything in their reach,
and fierce looking monsters with fishes' heads came rushing in from all
sides, to stare at little Mary Louise with their great savage eyes.

Presently the little old man stood up and bowing politely, told them
that Mary Louise had never caught a fish with a cruel hook.

Then these dreadful monsters snapped their horny jaws and swam away.

At once the mackerel-faced coachman whipped up his team of gold and
silver fishes and away they went spinning down the road again.

At last the carriage stopped in front of a fine mansion, and Mary
Louise and the little old man jumped out on the smooth beach of
sparkling sand which sloped down to a glassy lake on which curious and
beautiful little boats were sailing in all directions.

Along the edge of the lake were many houses, some stately castles and
some little cottages. The little cottages were covered with creeping
plants abloom with red flowers and the stately castles with moss like
vines.

But the people. Oh dear me! They were the strangest folk! Some had
very long noses and ugly looking teeth in their wide mouths, and others
were so thin they looked like small sticks, and others so round that
they could almost trundle themselves along like a coach-wheel. Some
were dressed in the shabbiest clothes, others in splendid suits, and
some covered with knobs and spikes and strange looking armor.

"Come," said the little fish man, and he led Mary Louise into his house.

Presently he brought out from a closet a quaintly shaped box. "It is
the legend of Wonderland that a little girl shall break the spell that
hangs over us. For it is deemed well-nigh impossible that a mortal
child would venture beneath the water to visit us. Therefore, little
Mary Louise, if I call all my people together, will you open this box
and deliver us from the spell of the Great Enchanter?"

"I will," she answered bravely, and at once the little old fish man
called together all his subjects.

As little Mary Louise looked at the box she saw printed on the cover
these words:

"If a little girl mortal
Shall uncover this prize,
The sea will sink
And the land will rise."

And, would you believe it, the first thing she knew after carefully
opening the box, she was back in the boat with the old sailor, who was
shading his eyes and looking towards a beautiful green island that