“After that I went every day to the bank of the stream, and did my best to compose myself to sleep; but in vain: the more I tried to sleep, the more I would be awake, in spite of the counsel of my brother, who gave me no peace on the subject of sleep, and was continually telling me of Napoleon, who had the power of going to sleep whenever he chose. At last, one day when I had fairly given up in despair, and had forgotten all about the fairies, and every thing else but the rippling of the stream,--for it happened to be the hour of noon, and the mill wheel was still, which usually drowned the voice of the brook,--I must have been falling into a sound sleep, when the rippling changed into the silver laughter of infant voices, and then a murmuring and consulting, breaking into faint acclamations, as of a busy throng, babbling, in an under tone, of some mysterious plot against some one they were fearful of waking. And then I felt myself borne away on little undulating arms, too far gone in sleep to resist, and then dancing and flickering on tiny waves, and lulled by their liquid echoes, till I lost myself in a deep sleep, which seemed to be pillowed on a sense of being carried on and on into a realm of silence, and then being lifted and carried, as on a living bier, with new senses waking clearer and clearer, as if naked in the delicate air of a new life, and at last waking and finding myself alone in an open space of forest, shadowed by trees of an unknown grace, and lighted by magic vistas where the distance found its last repose on the summits of sun-lit mountains.