The lady said: “Even tears are not in vain, for these garments you wear are woven of the tears you have shed. You could not have gone with me without them.”
The little girl laughed and said, “How strange that I should ever be thankful for the tears I have shed!”
And the lady answered, “Some day, when it is over, you will be thankful for the pain also.”
But the little girl thought that would be impossible.
So they floated happily along. They stopped to breathe on some drooping flowers that a careless child had neglected. They crossed a great river, and presently they came to a mighty cataract.
“Here is our home, and here are the children of the Mist,” said the lady.
The little girl held her breath in astonishment, and so would any other earth-child at what she saw. For, whirling, floating, dancing over the cataract, on the shore, diving headlong down the mighty fall with the water, floating up again from the abyss, were myriads of beautiful forms. There were large and small, smaller than the little girl.
The Mist Lady’s eyes sparkled; she held out her hand; “Come, little Princess,” she said, “let us join them.” But the little girl drew back.
“Oh, I cannot; I am afraid. Do you go, and I will watch you from this bank.”
“Well, then; but sit here where some of us can be with you every moment, or your garments will wax old and fall from you, and how then will you reach your home?”