Instead of being placed on the ground amongst the grass the nest was floating on the water. She examined it but without touching it, and noticed that it was made in a way to go up and down according to the flow of the water, and was so surrounded with reeds that neither the current nor the wind could carry it away. The mother hen, anxious, took up her position at a distance and stayed there. Perrine hid herself in the high grass and waited to see if she would come back to her nest. As she did not return, she went on with her walk, and again and again the rustling of her dress frightened other birds. The water hens, so lissom in their escape, ran to the floating leaves of the water lilies without going under. She saw birds everywhere. When an hour later she returned to her little home the hut was hidden half in the shadows of night. It was so quiet and pretty she thought, and how pleased she was that she had shown as much intelligence as these birds ... to make her nest here. With Perrine, as with many little children, it was the events of the day which shaped her dreams by night. The unhappiness through which she had passed the last few months had often colored her dreams, and many times since her troubles had commenced, she had awakened in the night with the perspiration pouring off her. Her sleep was disturbed with nightmares caused by the miseries she had experienced in the day. Now since she had been at Maraucourt and had new hopes and was at work, the nightmares had been less frequent and so she was not so sad. Now she thought of what she was going to do at the factory the next day, of the skirt and waist that she would make, of her underwear. Now on this particular evening after she had wandered over the fields surrounding her home and had entered her little nest to go to sleep, strange visions passed before her sleepy eyes. She thought that she was walking about the field exploring, and came upon a great big kitchen, a wonderful kitchen like in castles, and there were a number of little dwarfs of the most diabolical shapes, sitting around a big table before a blazing fire; some of them were breaking eggs, others were beating them up until they were white and frothy; and some of these eggs were as large as melons and others were as small as a little pea, and the dwarfs made the most extraordinary dishes from them. They seemed to know the every kind of dish that could be made with eggs,--boiled eggs with cheese and butter; with tomatoes; poached; fried eggs; various omelettes with ham and kidney, jam or rum; the rum set afire and flaming with sparkling lights. And then there were more important dishes still which only the head cooks were handling ... pastries and delicious creams.