I was happy to be able to tell her that her scepticism, though well founded, was extreme. The existence of Fairyland, I was able to point out to her both by documentary evidence from books and also by calling in the testimony of the aged, could not be doubted by any reasonable person. What was really difficult was the way to get there. Indeed, so obviously true was the existence of Fairyland, that every one in this world set out to go there as a matter of course, but so difficult was it to find the way that very few reached the place. Upon this the child very naturally asked me what sort of way the way was and why it was so difficult. "You must first understand," said I, "where Fairyland is: it lies a little way farther than the farthest hill you can see. It lies, in fact, just beyond that hill. The frontiers of it are sometimes a little doubtful in any landscape, because the landscape is confused, but if on the extreme limits of the horizon you see a long line of hills bounding your view exactly, then you may be perfectly certain that on the other side of those hills is Fairyland. There are times of the day and of the weather when the sky over Fairyland can be clearly perceived, for it has a different colour from any other kind of sky. That is where Fairyland is. It is not on an island, as some have pretended, still less is it under the earth--a ridiculous story, for there it is all dark." "But how do you get there?" asked the child. "Do you get there by walking to the hills and going over?" "No," said I, "that is just the bother of it. Several people have thought that that was the way of getting there; in fact, it looked plain common sense, but there is a trick about it; when you get to the hills everything changes, because the fairies have that power: the hills become ordinary, the people living on them turn into people just like you and me, and then when you get to the top of the hills, before you can say knife another common country just like ours has been stuck on the other side. On this account, through the power of the fairies, who hate particularly to be disturbed, no one can reach Fairyland in so simple a way as by walking towards it." "Then," said the child to me, "I don't see how any one can get there"--for this child had good brains and common sense.