as what it cost. Then she went home and planted the barley-corn;
immediately there grew out of it a large and beautiful flower, which
looked like a tulip, but the petals were tightly closed as if it were
still only a bud.

'What a beautiful flower!' exclaimed the woman, and she kissed the red
and yellow petals; but as she kissed them the flower burst open. It
was a real tulip, such as one can see any day; but in the middle of
the blossom, on the green velvety petals, sat a little girl, quite
tiny, trim, and pretty. She was scarcely half a thumb in height; so
they called her Thumbelina. An elegant polished walnut-shell served
Thumbelina as a cradle, the blue petals of a violet were her mattress,
and a rose-leaf her coverlid. There she lay at night, but in the
day-time she used to play about on the table; here the woman had put a
bowl, surrounded by a ring of flowers, with their stalks in water, in
the middle of which floated a great tulip petal, and on this
Thumbelina sat, and sailed from one side of the bowl to the other,
rowing herself with two white horse-hairs for oars. It was such a
pretty sight! She could sing, too, with a voice more soft and sweet
than had ever been heard before.

One night, when she was lying in her pretty little bed, an old toad
crept in through a broken pane in the window. She was very ugly,
clumsy, and clammy; she hopped on to the table where Thumbelina lay
asleep under the red rose-leaf.

'This would make a beautiful wife for my son,' said the toad, taking
up the walnut-shell, with Thumbelina inside, and hopping with it
through the window into the garden.

There flowed a great wide stream, with slippery and marshy banks; here
the toad lived with her son. Ugh! how ugly and clammy he was, just
like his mother! 'Croak, croak, croak!' was all he could say when he
saw the pretty little girl in the walnut-shell.

[Illustration: CROAK CROAK CROAK Was All He Could Say.]

'Don't talk so loud, or you'll wake her,' said the old toad. 'She
might escape us even now; she is as light as a feather. We will put
her at once on a broad water-lily leaf in the stream. That will be
quite an island for her; she is so small and light. She can't run away
from us there, whilst we are preparing the guest-chamber under the
marsh where she shall live.'

Outside in the brook grew many water-lilies, with broad green leaves,
which looked as if they were swimming about on the water. The leaf
farthest away was the la