But instead of the fishes which used to swim about in the pretty clear water, and which would come to eat the crumbs of bread she always threw to them, and the funny, croaking frogs which used to jump and splash in the water, she saw nothing but the same great green toad, which had hopped down faster than she had walked, and which was now sitting on a mossy stone near the bank. And when Eva would have turned away he croaked again: “Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!” And whether Eva wished it or not, she stood by the pond--for she really could not help it--and looked. And it seemed to her that the sky grew dark and the water black, as it always does before a rain; and then the child grew frightened, and would have run away, but that just then, in the very blackest part of the pond, she saw shining and looking up at her a little round full moon, with a face in it; and it seemed to her, strange though you may think it, that the eyes of the face in the moon winked at her; and then it was gone. And again Eva would have left the pond, but the green toad, which she thought had suddenly grown larger, croaked more loudly: “Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!” And Eva obeyed, as indeed she could not help doing; and then again, in the pond, there came and went the little moon-face, only that this time it was larger, and the eyes winked longer. For the third time the child would have turned away, frightened at all these strange doings in the pond; but for the third time the green toad, larger than ever, croaked: “Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!” So, for the third time, Eva looked at the pond; and there, for the third time, was the shining moon-face, as large now as a real full moon, though, when Eva looked up, there was no moon shining in the sky to be reflected in the pond; and then the eyes in the moon-face looked harder at her, and the toad winked at her; and then the toad was the moon and the moon was the toad, and both seemed to change places with each other; and at last both of them shone and winked so that Eva could not tell them apart; and before she knew what she was doing she lay down quietly in the tall grass, and the moon in the pond and the green toad winked at her until she fell asleep. Then the moon-eyes closed and the shining face faded; and the green toad slipped quietly off his stone into the water; and still Eva slept soundly. And that was what Eva saw in the pond. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. _EVA’S FIRST ADVENTURE._