The Mist lifted herself a little and took a turn round the meadow. Then she came back, and went on with her story:--"It is the worst of this world that one is never contented with what one has. So it was with us. We kept running on and on, till at last we ran into a great lake, where water-lilies rocked on the water and dragon-flies hummed on their great stiff wings. Up on the surface the lake was clear as a mirror. But whether we wished it or not, we had to run right down by the bottom, where it was dark and gruesome. And this I could not endure. I longed for the sunbeams. I knew them so well from the time I used to run in the brook. There they used to peep down through the leaves and pass over me in fleeting gleams. I longed so much to see them again that I stole up to the surface, and lay down in the sunshine all amongst the white water-lilies and their great green leaves. But, ugh! how the sun burnt me there on the lake I It was scarcely bearable. Bitterly did I regret that I had not stopped down below." "I can't say this part of your story is very amusing," said the Night-Violet. "Isn't the Mist soon coming?" "Here it is!" said the Mist, and dropped down once more on the flower, so that it nearly had the breath squeezed out of it. "Ough! ough!" shrieked the Night-Violet. "Upon my word, you are the most ill-natured person I have ever known. Move off, and go on with your story, since it must be so." "In the evening, when the sun had set, I suddenly became wonderfully light," said the Mist. "I don't know how it came about, but I thought I could rise up from the lake and fly; and before I knew anything about it, I was drifting over the water, far away from the dragon-flies and the water-lilies. The evening breeze bore me away. I flew high up into the air, and there I met many of my sisters, who had been just as eager for novelty as myself, and had had the same fate. We drifted across the sky, for, you see, we had become clouds." "I am not sure I do see," said the Night-Violet. "The thing sounds incredible." "But it is true all the same," answered the Mist "And let me tell you what happened then. The wind carried us for a long way through the air. But all at once it would not do so any more, and let us drop. Down we fell on to the earth as a splashing shower of rain. The flowers all shut up in a hurry, and the birds crept under cover--except, of course, the ducks and the geese, for, you know, the wetter it is the more they like it. Yes--and the farmer too! He wanted rain so much for his crops, he stood there hugely delighted, and did not in the least mind getting wet. But otherwise we really did make quite a sensation." "Oh! so you are the rain as well?" said the Night-Violet. "I must say you have plenty to do." "Yes, I'm never idle," said the Mist.