Looking anxiously around, after wiping some stray crumbs from his eyes, he saw his little friend, the Gnome, running frantically down the steep incline, which, luckily for Ned, had been the cause of his liberation. Finding him unhurt, the Gnome sat down on the piece of cake to rest himself and regain his breath before speaking. When he did, however, what he said caused Ned to run quickly over to the brook to look at himself in the water. To his dismay, what the Gnome had said was, indeed, too true. Ned was nearly as broad as he was high. The cake he had eaten had evidently occupied the same space inside of him as it had inside the brown crust. "What am I ever going to do?" said Ned. "'Twas a lucky think I kept you from drinking another gobletful of the watermelon juice," answered the Gnome. "Otherwise you might have eaten the whole cake, and then you might have been twice as large as you are now." "I don't think there is anything to laugh at," said Ned, as his small friend burst into a hearty peal of laughter. "Of course you don't," replied the Gnome, "you can't see yourself. If you could, though--oh, my!" and he again burst into peals of laughter. Ned waited a few moments and then asked: "Well, what are we going to do?" "Don't worry, Ned, dear," replied his little friend, touched by his good nature and feeling sorry for him, "don't worry. The watermelon juice made the sponge cake swell. All that is necessary now is to take the antidote, and I know where it can be found without any trouble." THE MAGIC NECTAR The Fairies brought a lily filled with the Magic Nectar. [Illustration] THE MAGIC NECTAR NED and the Gnome continued their journey down the valley, following the crystal stream, in whose waters he had just a short time before seen his distorted figure, until they came to a beautiful waterfall, down whose silvery sheen slid numerous water sprites and water fairies. "Over yonder," exclaimed the Gnome, "lives the Fairy of the Lake. She brews a magic liquid from checkerberries, which, I am told, if you but drink a thimbleful, will enable you to regain your natural shape. There she goes now, over the bridge, on some such errand I dare say." Ned watched the fairy stepping across the silver network which hung above a miniature Niagara that he could easily have spanned with a single step. Catching up a handful of berries he followed her, not heeding the Gnome's remark "that she would probably prefer to pick them herself," and, almost treading on some of the fairies who were blowing about in the long grass like the flowers they represented, threw the berries in a heap at the door of her castle. It was, indeed, a most beautiful little palace. Made of brilliant crystals, it sparkled in the sun like a rainbow. Inside, it was even more exquisite, for all her little subjects, the flower fairies and the woodland fays, had adorned it with many lovely things.