558 ‘THE WILD SWANS.

‘As soon as Elise saw her own image, she was frightened
at finding herself so brown and so ugly, But onwetting her little
hand, and rubbing her eyes and forehead, her white skin was
soon apparent once more. She then undressed, and stepped into
the water ; and a lovelier royal child than herself could not
have been met with in the wide world.

When she had dressed herself again, and braided her long
hair, she went to the running stream, and drank out of the
hollow of her hand, and then she wandered deeper into the
forest, without knowing what she meant todo. She thought
of her brothers, and trusted that God would not abandon her.
God has bidden the wild apples to grow to feed the hungry, and
He led her to one of these trees, whose boughs were bending
beneath the weight of their fruit. Here she made her mid-
day's meal, and after propping up the branches, she went into
the gloomiest depths of the forest. It was so quiet here, that
she could hear the sound of her own footsteps, and every little
dried leaf that crackled under her feet. Not a bird was to be
seen, nor did a sunbeam penetrate through the large dark
branches. The lofty trunks stood so close to each other, that
when she looked before her it seemed as if she were shut in by
a lattice made of huge beams of wood. It was solitude such as
she had never known before.

‘The night was quite dark, Not a little glow-worm beamed
from the moss. She lay down sorrowfally to compose herself
to sleep. She then fancied that the boughs above her head
moved aside, and that the Almighty looked down upon her with
pitying eyes, while little angels hovered above his head and
under his arms,

Next morning when she woke, she could not tell whether
this was a dream, or whether it had really taken place.

She then set out, but had not gone many steps when she met