tles, midges, bees, cockchafers--every
sort of creature of the kind, so that Lena started up in a fright. But
no--no flies of any sort were to be seen, but nearer and nearer, louder
and louder came the sound, till at last it grew into a sort of chant, as
if a great number of little feet were stepping along together, and a
great number of little buzzing voices singing in time to them. And
glancing up at the curtains Lena plainly saw a whole quantity of tiny
brown figures stepping--you couldn't call it sliding, they moved too
regularly--downwards in the direction of her face. And if she had looked
closer, she would have seen that every place in the pattern where the
wee brown faces peeped out was empty! The monkeys had come to fetch her!
Where to?

"That I must try to tell you--but as to how she got there, that is a
different matter. She never knew it herself, so how could any one else
know it? All I can tell you is this--she found herself standing in
front of a little house--a pretty little house, something like the
carved Swiss cottages that your mamma has in the library--there was a
garden all round it, thick trees and bushes at the sides, and as Lena
suddenly, as it were, seemed to awake to find herself there, she heard
at the same moment a sort of scuttling all about her, just as if
a lot of hares or rabbits had taken flight. And when she quickly
turned round to look, she saw disappearing among the shrubs ever so
many--_quantities_ of pairs of little brown legs and feet--the bodies
and heads belonging to them being already hidden in the green.

"'It must be the monkeys,' thought Lena, and as this came into her mind
it struck her too that this place where she found herself was the very
place where she had wished to be. Till this moment she had somehow
forgotten about it, but now she looked about her with great
interest--yes--this cottage must be the very place she had called an
arbour, for the fence in front of it was of rustic work like dried
branches twisted together, and there at the side was one of the trees
with the thick leaves where the monkey's face had peeped out--and at the
other side were the plants with the big bobbing red flowers, and the
other ones with the hanging yellow lilies--all the things she had
noticed so often. Lena had really got her wish. She was _in_ the chintz
curtains. Only there were no birds, no butterflies, nothing moving at
all--no monkeys' faces peeping at her from among the leaves. E