`` Is not that a very fine story ? '' asked Eustace . `` O yes , yes ! '' cried Cowslip , clapping her hands . `` And those funny old women , with only one eye amongst them ! I never heard of anything so strange . '' `` As to their one tooth , which they shifted about , '' observed Primrose , `` there was nothing so very wonderful in that . I suppose it was a false tooth . But think of your turning Mercury into Quicksilver , and talking about his sister ! You are too ridiculous ! '' `` And was she not his sister ? '' asked Eustace Bright . `` If I had thought of it sooner , I would have described her as a maiden lady , who kept a pet owl ! '' `` Well , at any rate , '' said Primrose , `` your story seems to have driven away the mist . '' And , indeed , while the tale was going forward , the vapors had been quite exhaled from the landscape . A scene was now disclosed which the spectators might almost fancy as having been created since they had last looked in the direction where it lay . About half a mile distant , in the lap of the valley , now appeared a beautiful lake , which reflected a perfect image of its own wooded banks , and of the summits of the more distant hills . It gleamed in glassy tranquillity , without the trace of a winged breeze on any part of its bosom . Beyond its farther shore was Monument Mountain , in a recumbent position , stretching almost across the valley . Eustace Bright compared it to a huge , headless sphinx , wrapped in a Persian shawl ; and , indeed , so rich and diversified was the autumnal foliage of its woods , that the simile of the shawl was by no means too high-colored for the reality .
In the lower ground , between Tanglewood and the lake , the clumps XXXXX trees and borders of woodland were chiefly golden-leaved or dusky brown , as having suffered more from frost than the foliage on the hillsides .
Beyond about across as in into of since that to