Page:Little Ellie and Other Tales (1850).djvu/18

Rh One night, as she lay in her nice little bed, an ugly, yellow toad hopped in through the broken window-pane. The creature was large and ugly, and jumped right upon the table where Ellie lay asleep under the rose-leaf.

“Why that would be a pretty wife for my son,” said the toad; then it seized with its mouth the nutshell in which Ellie was, and hopped with it through the window into the garden.

Here was a large piece of water, but the banks were marshy; and there the toad and her son lived. Faugh! how ugly the son was! all spotted with green and yellow, just like his mother; and all he had to say when he saw the pretty little maiden in the nutshell was, “Croak! Cr-rr-oa-oa-k! Cr-r-r-oak!”

“Don’t speak so loud,” said his mother: “If you do, she may wake up and escape, for she is lighter than swans’ down. We will take her out on the river and put her on the leaf of a water-lily; to her that will be a large island; and thence she cannot