council, in which their relative wisdom
should be determined. At length one of them flew up into the lady's
hand, looking lively and ready.

"You know where the rainbow stands?" she asked.

"Yes, Mother, quite well," answered the fish.

"Bring home a young man you will find there, who does not know where to
go."

The fish was out of the door in a moment. Then the lady told Tangle it
was time to go to bed; and, opening another door in the side of the
cottage, showed her a little arbour, cool and green, with a bed of
purple heath growing in it, upon which she threw a large wrapper made
of the feathered skins of the wise fishes, shining gorgeous in the
firelight.

Tangle was soon lost in the strangest, loveliest dreams. And the
beautiful lady was in every one of her dreams.

In the morning she woke to the rustling of leaves over her head, and
the sound of running water. But, to her surprise, she could find no
door--nothing but the moss-grown wall of the cottage. So she crept
through an opening in the arbour, and stood in the forest. Then she
bathed in a stream that ran merrily through the trees, and felt
happier; for having once been in her grandmother's pond, she must be
clean and tidy ever after; and, having put on her green dress, felt
like a lady.

She spent that day in the wood, listening to the birds and beasts and
creeping things. She understood all that they said, though she could
not repeat a word of it; and every kind had a different language, while
there was a common though more limited understanding between all the
inhabitants of the forest. She saw nothing of the beautiful lady, but
she felt that she was near her all the time; and she took care not to
go out of sight of the cottage. It was round, like a snow-hut or a
wigwam; and she could see neither door nor window in it. The fact was,
it had no windows; and though it was full of doors, they all opened
from the inside, and could not even be seen from the outside.

She was standing at the foot of a tree in the twilight, listening to a
quarrel between a mole and a squirrel, in which the mole told the
squirrel that the tail was the best of him, and the squirrel called the
mole Spade-fists, when, the darkness having deepened around her, she
became aware of something shining in her face, and looking round, saw
that the door of the cottage was open, and the red light of the fire
flowing from it like a river through the darkness. She left Mole and
Squirre