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Rh examine the details of her chamber, and she rose up. Hardly had she done so, when she heard in an ante-room at the farther end a clamour of voices as soft and thin as those of little children, and yet with a strange resemblance to those of grown people in the fulness and quickness of the articulation.

Suddenly, through the opening of the curtain which half concealed the aperture, a troop of tiny little people rushed and ran up to Daphne, kissed the ground before her, and then stood still, as if waiting for her commands. She then saw they were really men and women of the true pigmy race. They were finely shaped, and had pretty, well-cut features, and without exception the most pleasant of countenances. They looked up to her just like dogs waiting for some notice to be taken of them, with glances full of suppressed friendliness. It was very gratifying to her, after the strange