and Effie's heart leapt to her lips; for it was the sound

of carriage-wheels.

'Mother! Mother!' she cried, and her wild screams wakened the cross old fairy at the gate.

'What's the matter with you? Hold your tongue,' he growled. But she flew to him, hardly knowing what she did, and pulled and dragged at him as he

sat.

'It's my mother come for me! It's my mother come for me! Oh, open the gate!' she cried.

'Let your mother speak for herself, then, if she has come for you; but I don't believe a word of it,' answered the elf.

Just as he said the last syllable, however, rat-tat-tat! came a great knocking at the gate.

'Mother!' cried Effie again.

'Effie! my little one!' answered a glad voice from the other side.

And then Effie felt something rising in her throat and choking her, and she couldn't speak again. She could only turn round in the darkness and feel for Bertha's hand.

The fairy had opened a little loop-hole in the gate, and called out crossly, 'Who's there, and what d' you want?'

'I want my child,' answered Effie's mother gently. 'I have come to reclaim her from fairy-land.'

'Humph! it's just like you mortals,' grumbled the

old imp. Always wanting one thing or another. Why couldn't you stay at home an hour or two longer, and Well, well,—if you must And he began sulkily to

let me have out my sleep? have her then, stand back.' unfasten the bolts and bars.

The two children's hands were locked together. 'Effie, hold me fast!' whispered poor little trembling Bertha; and Effie held her fast, and breathless and panting they waited for the door to open.

How many fastenings there seemed to be to it! and how slowly the fairy shot back the bolts and loosed the bars, and turned the key! But it was done at last. The gate, as it began to open, creaked upon its hinges, and the children, with their hearts upon their lips, were springing forward, when—

Treason!' hoarsely shouted the old doorkeeper. 'Treason! thieves! murder! fire!'

The half-opened gate fell shut again with a clang, the fairy screamed and croaked like an old raven, and, pulling his alarm-bell with all his might, sent out a peal that sounded through all the length and breadth of fairy-land. In twenty seconds the very air was full of fairies; on they came in shoals, some scampering forward on their feet, some mounted upon horseback, some riding upon broomsticks,-shrieking, gabbling, groaning, howling; troop after troop of them with lighted torches, that made all the place in half a minute as bright as day, or brighter, for as they flashed

about, hither and thither, up and down, the very air seemed all on fire.

A hundred of them swarmed round Effie's feet; a dozen of them leaped upon her back, pinching her, scratching her, pulling her, dragging her now here now there, this way and that, shaking her, pecking at her eyes, tearing out her hair, scolding her, screaming at her, deafening and dazing her.

What were she and Bertha to do?

'Effie, hold me fast!' still cried poor Bertha's shaking voice; but even while she spoke it was no longer Bertha that was clinging to her, but a great tiger with hot glaring eyes and fierce claws ready to gripe and rend her.

'Oh!!' shrieked little Effie at this sight, and all but loosed her hold; but—'Effie, Effie, hold me fast!' once more cried Bertha's despairing voice, and Effie gave a gasp, and caught her tight again, and held her fast with all her might.

Sharp as lightning, and quick as thought, one horror followed on another; it was a serpent now that hissed into her face, and tried to wriggle its scaly body from her grasp, and now a vulture that swooped on her and griped her, and now some slimy thing whose slow cold touch made her shudder to the marrow of her bones; and now a lion, and now an ape, and now a hideous creature with something of a human face that laughed and grinned, and tore at her, and mocked her. But