Page:The House Without Windows.djvu/70

 The third morning she descended into a rich and fertile valley. A small brook was winding down it, and where the weeping willows dipped into the current it bubbled and sang. This valley was the broadest that Eepersip had yet gone through. But after a long time she came out of it against a high, precipitous cliff. Up the side of this she climbed, digging her toes into the cracks between the rocks, At last she got to the top; and a long, weary climb it had been. She was now on a grassy hill where bloomed daisies shining like stars, and little butter-cups of gold. There were butterflies, too, with brilliant wings, and they hovered and fluttered over the flowers. And lo! there was the ocean, nearer now, with the sun shining on it; and Eepersip could see the surf rolling and foaming. Shrill cries pierced the airthe cries of birds, of seagulls swooping inland in wide circles. And as went on through the waving grass she could smell the delicious salt air of the sea.

But, alas, she met with a hindrance. Between, her and the coast there was a valley extending for miles, and poor Eepersip would have to clamber down a precipitous cliff, through the valley, and up another cliff. Down she went, rather unwillingly but knowing that she would get there sometime. At last she came to the bottom. It wasn't so bad