way through the woods. It shone on and on in one great bright path,
like the moon shining over the sea. Rudolf reached home walking like one
in a dream, his head full of strange and marvellous fancies.

PART IV

Rudolf awoke rather later than usual; for he was thoroughly tired out.
His mother did not feel so concerned about him when she saw the amount
of breakfast he consumed; but he was still silent and abstracted. His
adventures seemed to him like a wild dream. It seemed almost absurd to
seek for the three firs; but yet an irresistible longing led him
thither.

On the stroke of twelve at midday he stood beneath them, and recognised
his own sign, and O joy! saw the toadstool with the toad sitting on it.

Without a moment's hesitation he took the handkerchief ("which was in
itself a proof of the reality of the story," he said to himself) and
seized the horrid shiny toad (how it wriggled and squirmed like some
evil thing!) and cast it to the ground where it sprang into a thousand
pieces. These pieces took root in the earth, so to speak, and came up
again as a multitude of toadstools quite wonderful to behold. Perhaps
you may see them if you ever come across this spot in your excursions to
the Taunus Mountains.

Then Rudolf took hold of the red and white toadstool on which the toad
had sat. Surely never before had a fungus been so firmly planted in the
earth! The whole ground seemed to shake and tremble as he tugged at it;
trees were uprooted in the forest; the earth moved up and down like the
waves of the sea. At last it was out, and bump down fell Rudolf. One of
the great fir-trees fell as well, luckily in another direction, or he
might have been crushed beneath it.

When he got up again, he saw to his joy a little red-roofed house and a
pretty maiden sitting in a pear-tree.

Babette had been watching him all the time; but she could not make out
what he was doing. She had nearly fallen off the tree as he pulled up
the toadstool. Now she climbed carefully down and came to the hedge and
their eyes met. Need I say that they fell in love, or, at any rate,
Rudolf did, at first sight. The hedge parted to let him through. Perhaps
this was caused by the fairy candle, or perhaps it was Mother Holle's
doing--who knows?

"Hush, he is asleep, you have come just at the right moment," said
Babette.

"We must secure the magic book first of all," said Rudolf, holding the
fir-branch firmly in his hand, "and would you kindl