"I can't say this part of your story is very amusing," said the night-violet. "Isn't the mist soon coming?"
"Here it is!" said the mist, and dropped down once more on the flower, so that it nearly had the breath squeezed out of it.
"Ough! ough!" shrieked the night-violet. "Upon my word, you are the most ill-natured person I have ever known. Move off, and go on with your story, since it must be so."
"In the evening, when the sun had set, I suddenly became wonderfully light," said the mist. "I don't know how it came about, but I thought I could rise up from the lake and fly; and before I knew anything about it, I was drifting over the water, far away from the dragon-flies and the water-lilies. The evening breeze bore me away. I flew high up into the air, and there I met many of my sisters, who had been just as eager for novelty as myself, and had had the same fate. We drifted across the sky, for, you see, we had become clouds."
"I am not sure I do see," said the night-violet. "The thing sounds incredible."
"But it is true all the same," answered the mist. "And let me tell you what happened then. The wind carried us for a long way through the air. But all at once it would not do so any more, and let us drop. Down we fell on to the earth as a splashing shower of rain. The flowers all shut up in a hurry, and the birds crept under cover—except, of course, the ducks and the geese, for, you know, the wetter it is the more they like it. Yes—and the farmer too! He wanted rain so much for his crops, he stood there hugely delighted, and did not in the least mind getting wet. But otherwise we really did make quite a sensation."