nk of a slender
tree, and at last climbed to the topmost branches, like a cat, and
seated herself firmly upon them. She remained there the whole day,
sitting alone, like a frightened squirrel, in the silent solitude of
the wood, where the rest and stillness is as the calm of death.

Butterflies fluttered around her, and close by were several
ant-hills, each with its hundreds of busy little creatures moving
quickly to and fro. In the air, danced myriads of gnats, swarm upon
swarm, troops of buzzing flies, ladybirds, dragon-flies with golden
wings, and other little winged creatures. The worm crawled forth
from the moist ground, and the moles crept out; but, excepting
these, all around had the stillness of death: but when people say
this, they do not quite understand themselves what they mean. None
noticed Helga but a flock of magpies, which flew chattering round
the top of the tree on which she sat. These birds hopped close to
her on the branches with bold curiosity. A glance from her eyes was
a signal to frighten them away, and they were not clever enough to
find out who she was; indeed she hardly knew herself.

When the sun was near setting, and the evening's twilight about to
commence, the approaching transformation aroused her to fresh
exertion. She let herself down gently from the tree, and, as the
last sunbeam vanished, she stood again in the wrinkled form of a frog,
with the torn, webbed skin on her hands, but her eyes now gleamed with
more radiant beauty than they had ever possessed in her most beautiful
form of loveliness; they were now pure, mild maidenly eyes that
shone forth in the face of a frog. They showed the existence of deep
feeling and a human heart, and the beauteous eyes overflowed with
tears, weeping precious drops that lightened the heart.

On the raised mound which she had made as a grave for the dead
priest, she found the cross made of the branches of a tree, the last
work of him who now lay dead and cold beneath it. A sudden thought
came to Helga, and she lifted up the cross and planted it upon the
grave, between the stones that covered him and the dead horse. The sad
recollection brought the tears to her eyes, and in this gentle
spirit she traced the same sign in the sand round the grave; and as
she formed, with both her hands, the sign of the cross, the web skin
fell from them like a torn glove. She washed her hands in the water of
the spring, and gazed with astonishment at their delicate wh