"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."
"Oh! so you are the rain as well?" said the Night-Violet. "I must say you have plenty to do."
"Yes, I'm never idle," said the Mist.
"All the same, I have not yet heard how you became mist," said the Night-Violet. "Only, please don't get into a passion again. You know you promised to tell me without my asking you, and I would sooner hear the whole story over again than shiver once more in your horrid, clammy arms."
The Mist lay silent and sobbed for a few moments. Then she went on with her story:—"After I had fallen on the earth as rain, I sank down into the black soil, and was already congratulating myself on soon getting back to my birthplace, the deep underground spring. There, at any rate, one enjoyed peace and had no cares. But, as I was sinking into the ground, the tree roots sucked me up, and I had to wander about for a whole day in the boughs and leaves. They treated me as a beast of burden, I assure you. All the food that the leaves and flowers needed I had to carry up to them from the roots. It was not till the evening that I managed to get away. When the sun had gone down the flowers and trees all heaved a deep sigh, and I and my sisters flew off in that sigh in the form of bright airy Mists. To-night we dance on the meadow. But when the sun rises in the morning we shall turn into those pretty transparent dewdrops which hang from your petals. When you shake us off we shall sink deeper and deeper till we reach the spring we came from—that is, if some root or other does not snap us up on the way. And so the journey goes on. Down the brook, out into the lake, up into the air, down again to the earth—"
"Stop!" said the Night-Violet. "If I listen to you any more, I shall become quite sea-sick."