And just as Eva said these words, a change came over the dwarf; he was the same, yet not the same, and she saw that he was nothing but a huge spider, and that instead of walking on the water, as she had supposed, he had come to the boat on a web stretched across the brook, on which he was now running away just as fast as he could. Then another of the trout put up his head, and said: “You did well to refuse him, for if he had gotten into the boat, or if you had given him the feather, he would have put a bandage over your eyes, so that you could not see, and then would have spun a web around you and the boat, and nobody knows how you ever would have got out of it.” “He could not do it in the forest,” Eva said; “how could he do it here?” “Because first you were only brought into Shadow-Land; this time you came into it. Such as he can only control those who allow him. He could only have power over you by your own act and deed.” And once more the boat went on. But after awhile she was hailed again,--and Eva bade her stop. This time Eva was surprised to see that the call came from a little old woman crouched upon a stone which rose above the water. A very ugly old woman she was, too; for she had a very wide mouth and a pair of prominent, staring black eyes, and she was wrapped in a green shawl, and talked in an odd little croaking voice. “Where are you going?” she asked Eva. Eva only smiled, for she could not tell the old woman what she did not know herself. “I know,” the old woman said, nodding her head, and without waiting for a reply, “you are looking for Aster and his coat.” “How do you know?” Eva began; but the old woman interrupted her: “Never you mind how I know it; it is enough for you that I do know it. And if you really want to find Aster, I can tell you where he is, and put you in the way of finding him.” “If you only would,” Eva said, eagerly. “You must first take me into the boat, and then give me one of your curls.” “No,” Eva said, remembering what the trout had told her; “that I cannot do.” Then the old woman grew angry, and she jumped off the stone, as if she wanted to get into the boat. But as she jumped, Eva spoke to the boat, and she moved on; and then the old woman fell into the water. And Eva saw that the old woman, changing her shape as soon as she touched the water, was nothing but the same great green frog she had seen before; and that her shawl was the piece torn from Aster’s coat which it was part of her business to find. The third trout popped his head up out of the water: “If you only could have known, and had given us the curl that the Green Frog asked you for, we would have made a net of it, in which we could have caught the frog, and then the hardest part of your task would have been over; for then you could have taken the piece of Aster’s coat away from her.” “If you only had told me,” Eva said. “But it seems that you can only speak when it is too late.”