Page:The House Without Windows.djvu/155

 the side of a lily-pad. A second later the frog diked up on the lily-pad and stared at Eepersip with his goggly eves. She burst out laughing, he looked so ridiculous staring at her like that.

She stayed in the meadow, playing gaily among tie leaves and flowers. Butterflies of all the colours of the rainbow swept over it in great flocks. Flowers bloomed so thickly that there was hardly any grasswhite ones with waxen petals. striped and bordered with heavy golden bands; red ones with centres of dark green-gold; great blossoms of pink and purple, whose petals fluttered about in the breeze like butterflies.

One morning she was awakened early by "Peep, peep, twitter-itter-ee-e-e-e-e-e, twit chirup, twitter-ee-e-e, twit!" She looked up and saw a great flock of snow-white birds with long narrow wings. They were flying northward. The flock was much more gigantic than Eepersip had supposed, for it kept on until she began to think that it was going round and round. But no: after ten or fifteen minutes the sky cleared, and she heard faintly in the distance: "Twitter-itter-ee-e-e-e-e, ee-e-per-s-sip! e-e-p, e-ep, chirup."

Day after day she danced here, playing, as on the first meadow, the butterflies, flowers, and swallows. And now, as she danced, she seemed to