While Teddy stood there looking at them and wondering, he heard a little thin voice, that seemed to be singing to itself, and this is what it sang: “In and out and out and in, Quick as a flash I weave and spin. Some may mistake and some forget, But I’ll have my spider-web finished yet.” When Teddy heard the song, he knew that someone must be awake in the enchanted castle, so he began looking about him. On the fourth side of the wall there hung a curtain of silvery-gray spider-web, and the voice seemed to come from it. The hero went toward it, but he saw nothing, for the spider that was spinning it moved so fast that no eyes could follow it. Presently it paused up in the left-hand corner of the web, and then Teddy saw it. It looked very little to have spun all that curtain of silvery web. As Teddy stood looking at it, it began to sing again: “Here in my shining web I sit, To look about and rest a bit. I rest myself a bit and then, Quick as a flash, I begin again.” “Mistress Spinner! Mistress Spinner!” cried Teddy. “Can you tell me where to find the enchanted princess who lies asleep waiting for me to come and rescue her?” The spider sat quite still for a while, and then it said in a voice as thin as a hair: “You must go through the emerald door; you must go through the emerald door. What so fit as the emerald door for the hero who would do great deeds?” Teddy did not so much as stay to thank the little gray spinner, he was in such a hurry to find the princess, but turning he sprang to the emerald door, flung it open, and stepped outside. He found himself standing on the glass steps, and as his foot touched the topmost one the whole flight closed up like an umbrella, and in a moment Teddy was sliding down the smooth glass pane, faster and faster and faster until he could hardly catch his breath. The next thing he knew he was standing in the golden garden, and there was the Counterpane Fairy beside him looking at him sadly. “You should have known better than to try the emerald door,” she said; “and now shall we break the story?” “Oh, no, no!” cried Teddy, and he was still the hero. “Let me try once more, for it may be I can yet save the princess.” Then the Counterpane Fairy smiled. “Very well,” she said, “you shall try again; but remember what I told you, _beware of that that is little and gray_, and take this with you, for it may be of use.” Stooping, she picked up a blade of grass from the ground and handed it to him. The hero took it wondering, and in his hands it was changed to a sword that shone so brightly that it dazzled his eyes. Then he turned, and there was the long flight of glass steps leading up to the golden castle just as before; so thrusting the magic sword into his belt, he ran nimbly up and up and up, and not until he reached the very topmost step did he turn and look back to wave farewell to the Counterpane Fairy below. She waved her hand to him. “Remember,” she called, “beware of what is little and gray.”