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[Illustration: "The Toad Woman stopped fanning and looked at her." Page
125.]




                               ADVENTURES
                                   IN
                              Shadow-Land.


                               CONTAINING

                    Eva's Adventures in Shadow-Land.
                           By MARY D. NAUMAN.

                                  AND

                    The Merman and The Figure-Head.
                         By CLARA F. GUERNSEY.


                          TWO VOLUMES IN ONE.

                         _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._


                              PHILADELPHIA
                         J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
                                 1874.


       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
                        J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
       In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

                          Lippincott's Press,
                             Philadelphia.




                            EVA'S ADVENTURES
                                   IN
                              SHADOW-LAND.


                                   TO
                               MY FRIEND
                                 E. W.




                               CONTENTS.


                               CHAPTER I.
                                                                    PAGE
  What Eva saw in the Pond                                             9

                               CHAPTER II.
  Eva's First Adventure                                               15

                               CHAPTER III.
  The Gift of the Fountain                                            23

                               CHAPTER IV.
  The First Moonrise                                                  30

                                CHAPTER V.
  What Aster was                                                      36

                               CHAPTER VI.
  The Beginning of the Search                                         45

                               CHAPTER VII.
  Aster's Misfortunes                                                 52

                              CHAPTER VIII.
  What Aster did                                                      63

                               CHAPTER IX.
  The Door in the Wall                                                73

                                CHAPTER X.
  The Valley of Rest                                                  80

                               CHAPTER XI.
  The Magic Boat                                                      92

                               CHAPTER XII.
  Down the Brook                                                     104

                              CHAPTER XIII.
  The Enchanted River                                                119

                               CHAPTER XIV.
  The Green Frog                                                     130

                               CHAPTER XV.
  In the Grotto                                                      145

                               CHAPTER XVI.
  Aster's Story                                                      151

                              CHAPTER XVII.
  The Last of Shadow-Land                                            162




                            EVA'S ADVENTURES
                            IN SHADOW-LAND.




                               CHAPTER I.
                      _WHAT EVA SAW IN THE POND._


She had been reading fairy-tales, after her lessons were done, all the
morning; and now that dinner was over, her father gone to his office,
the baby asleep, and her mother sitting quietly sewing in the cool
parlor, Eva thought that she would go down across the field to the old
mill-pond; and sit in the grass, and make a fairy-tale for herself.

There was nothing that Eva liked better than to go and sit in the tall
grass; grass so tall that when the child, in her white dress, looped on
her plump white shoulders with blue ribbons, her bright golden curls
brushed back from her fair brow, and her blue eyes sparkling, sat down
in it, you could not see her until you were near her, and then it was
just as if you had found a picture of a little girl in a frame, or
rather a nest of soft, green grass.

All through this tall, wavy grass, down to the very edge of the pond,
grew many flowers,--violets, and buttercups, and dandelions, like little
golden suns. And as Eva sat there in the grass, she filled her lap with
the purple and yellow flowers; and all around her the bees buzzed as
though they wished to light upon the flowers in her lap; on which, at
last,--so quietly did she sit,--two black-and-golden butterflies
alighted; while a great brown beetle, with long black feelers, climbed
up a tall grass-stalk in front of her, which, bending slightly under his
weight, swung to and fro in the gentle breeze which barely stirred Eva's
golden curls; and the field-crickets chirped, and even a snail put his
horns out of his shell to look at the little girl, sitting so quietly in
the grass among the flowers, for Eva was gentle, and neither bee, nor
butterfly, beetle, cricket, or snail were afraid of her. And this is
what Eva called making a fairy-tale for herself.

But sitting so quietly and watching the insects, and hearing their low
hum around her, at last made Eva feel drowsy; and she would have gone to
sleep, as she often did, if all of a sudden there had not sounded, just
at her feet, so that it startled her, a loud

Croak! croak!

But it frightened the two butterflies; for away they went, floating off
on their black-and-golden wings; and the brown beetle was in so much of
a hurry to run away that he tumbled off the grass-stalk on which he had
been swinging, and as soon as he could regain his legs, crept, as fast
as they could carry him, under a friendly mullein-leaf which grew near,
and hid himself; and the crickets were silent; and the bees all flew
away to their hive; and the snail drew himself and his horns into his
house, so that he looked like nothing in the world but a shell; for when
beetles, and butterflies, and crickets, and bees, and snails hear this
croak! croak! they know that it is time for them to get out of the way.

And when Eva looked down, there, just at her feet, sat a great green
toad.

She gave him a little push with her foot to make him go away; but
instead of that he only hopped the nearer, and again came--

Croak! croak!

He was entirely too near now for comfort, so the little girl jumped up,
dropping all the flowers she had gathered; and as she stood still for a
moment she thought that she heard the green toad say:

"Go to the pond! Go to the pond!"

It seemed so funny to Eva to hear a toad talk that she stood as still as
a mouse looking at him; and as she looked at him, she heard him say
again, as plain as possible:

"Go to the pond! Go to the pond!"

And then Eva did just exactly what either you or I would have done if we
had heard a great green toad talking to us. She went slowly through the
tall grass down to the very edge of the pond.

But instead of the fishes which used to swim about in the pretty clear
water, and which would come to eat the crumbs of bread she always threw
to them, and the funny, croaking frogs which used to jump and splash in
the water, she saw nothing but the same great green toad, which had
hopped down faster than she had walked, and which was now sitting on a
mossy stone near the bank. And when Eva would have turned away he
croaked again:

"Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!"

And whether Eva wished it or not, she stood by the pond--for she really
could not help it--and looked. And it seemed to her that the sky grew
dark and the water black, as it always does before a rain; and then the
child grew frightened, and would have run away, but that just then, in
the very blackest part of the pond, she saw shining and looking up at
her a little round full moon, with a face in it; and it seemed to her,
strange though you may think it, that the eyes of the face in the moon
winked at her; and then it was gone.

And again Eva would have left the pond, but the green toad, which she
thought had suddenly grown larger, croaked more loudly:

"Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!"

And Eva obeyed, as indeed she could not help doing; and then again, in
the pond, there came and went the little moon-face, only that this time
it was larger, and the eyes winked longer.

For the third time the child would have turned away, frightened at all
these strange doings in the pond; but for the third time the green toad,
larger than ever, croaked:

"Stay by the pond! Stay by the pond!"

So, for the third time, Eva looked at the pond; and there, for the third
time, was the shining moon-face, as large now as a real full moon,
though, when Eva looked up, there was no moon shining in the sky to be
reflected in the pond; and then the eyes in the moon-face looked harder
at her, and the toad winked at her; and then the toad was the moon and
the moon was the toad, and both seemed to change places with each other;
and at last both of them shone and winked so that Eva could not tell
them apart; and before she knew what she was doing she lay down quietly
in the tall grass, and the moon in the pond and the green toad winked at
her until she fell asleep.

Then the moon-eyes closed and the shining face faded; and the green toad
slipped quietly off his stone into the water; and still Eva slept
soundly.

And that was what Eva saw in the pond.




                              CHAPTER II.
                        _EVA'S FIRST ADVENTURE._


How long she lay there asleep the child did not know. It might only have
been for a few minutes; it might have been for hours. Yet, when she did
awake, and think it was time for her to go home, she did not understand
where she could be. The place seemed the same, yet not the same,--as
though some wonderful change had come over it during her sleep. There
was the pond, to be sure, but was it the same pond? Tall trees grew
round it, yet their branches were bare and leafless. A little brook ran
into the pond, which she was sure that she never had seen there before.
Was she still asleep? No. She was wide awake. She sprang to her feet and
looked around. The green toad was gone, so was the moon-face; her
father's house was nowhere to be seen; there was no sun, but it was not
dark, for a light seemed to come from the earth, and yet the earth
itself did not shine; mountains rose in the distance; but, strangest of
all, these mountains sometimes bore one shape, sometimes another; at
times they were like great crouching beasts, then again like castles or
palaces, then, as you looked, they were mountains again. Strange shadows
passed over the pond, stranger shapes flitted among the trees.

Eva did not know how the change had been made, still less did she guess
that she was now in Shadow-Land.

Yet it was all so singular that, as she looked upon the changing
mountain forms, and the quaint shadows, a sudden longing came over her,
with a desire to go home, and she turned away from the pond. And as she
did so, a little fragrant purple violet, the last that was left of all
the flowers which she had gathered, and which had been tangled in her
curls, fell to the ground, melting into fragrance as it did so; and as
it fell, there passed from Eva's mind all recollection of father,
mother, home, and the little brother cooing in his cradle: the changing
mountain forms seemed strange no longer; she forgot to wonder at the
singular earth-light, and at the absence of the sun; and noticing for
the first time that she was standing in a little path which ran along
the pond, and then followed the course of the little brook, whose waters
seemed singing the words, "Follow, follow me!" Eva wondered no longer,
but first stooping to pick up a little stick, in shape like a boy's
cane, with a knob at one end, just like a roughly carved head, and which
was lying just at her feet, she walked along the little path, which
seemed made expressly for her to walk in.

She walked on and on, as she thought, for hours, yet there came neither
sunset nor moonrise, and there were no stars in the sky, which seemed
nearer the earth than she had ever seen it before. There were clouds, to
be sure, of shapes as strange as those of the mountains, which passed
and repassed each other, although there was no wind to move them.
Everything was silent. Even the trees, swaying, as they did, to and fro,
moved noiselessly; the only sound, save Eva's light steps, which broke
the stillness was the silvery ripple of the brook, which kept company
with the path Eva trod, and whose waters murmured, gently, "Follow,
follow me!"

And Eva followed the murmuring brook, which seemed to her like a
pleasant companion in this silent land, where, even as there was no
sound, there was no sign of life; nothing like the real world which the
child had left, and of which, with the fall of the little violet from
her curls, she had lost all recollection; even as though that world had
never existed for her. Once or twice, as she went on, holding her little
stick in her hand, she imagined that she saw child-figures beckoning to
her; but, upon going up to them, she always found that either a rock, or
a low, leafless shrub, or else a rising wreath of mist, had deceived
her.

Yet, though she was alone, with no one near her, not even a bird to flit
merrily from tree to tree, nor an insect to buzz across her path, Eva
felt and knew no fear, and not for a moment did she care that she was
alone. The silvery ripple of the little brook, along which her path lay,
sounded like a pleasant voice in her ears; when thirsty, she drank of
its waters, which seemed to serve alike as food and drink; when tired,
she would lie fearlessly down upon its grassy margin, and sleep, as she
would imagine, only for a few minutes, for there would be no change in
the strange sky nor in the earth-light when she would awake from what it
had been when she lay down; and yet in reality she would sleep as long
as she would have done in her little bed at home.

For two whole days, which yet seemed as only a few hours, the child
followed the brook. During this time she had felt no desire to leave the
path; she had unhesitatingly obeyed the rippling voice of the brook,
which seemed to say, "Follow, follow me!" But now there was a change:
the water, at times, encroached upon the path, and rocks obstructed the
current, around which little waves broke and dashed, while strange
little flames, which yet did not burn, and gave no heat, started from
the waves, dancing on them; and misty shapes, more definite than those
she had first seen, beckoned to her to come to them. Now, Eva felt an
irresistible longing to leave the brook, and wander away; far, far into
the deep forest, away from the dancing flames and the beckoning shapes.

And once or twice she did leave the path, and turn her back upon the
brook. But every time that she stepped off the beaten track, faint
though it was, her feet grew heavy, and clung to the earth, so that she
could scarcely move; and the waves of the brook leaped higher and
higher; and the dancing flames grew brighter; and the silvery voice,
louder and clearer than ever, would call, "Follow, follow me!" till the
child was always glad to return to the path, and then once again the way
would grow easy to her feet, and the water would resume its former
tranquillity.

On, on she went, still following the course of the brook. But at last a
new sound mingled, though but faintly, with its musical ripple,--the
distant voice of falling waters. And when first this new tone reached
Eva's ears, a few signs of life began to show themselves,--a sad-
moth flitted lazily across the path into the forest,--a slow-crawling
worm or hairy caterpillar hid itself under a stone as Eva passed,--the
bright eyes of a mouse would peep out at her from under the shelter of a
leaf, or else a toad would leap hastily from the path into the waters of
the brook.

Still Eva walked onward, more eagerly than ever, for though the "Follow,
follow me!" of the brook was now silent, she heard the voice of the
other waters, and at every turn in the path she looked forward eagerly
for the little joyous cascade she expected to see. For it she looked,
yet in vain: though the sound of the waters grew louder, she saw
nothing, till at last a sudden gleam of golden light, from a long
opening in the forest, fell across the now placid waters of the brook;
and Eva looked up to see, far away in this opening, a fountain playing
in clouds of golden spray, amid which danced sparkles of light; and the
path, parting abruptly from the brook which it had followed so long, led
down the opening in the forest directly to this play of waters, whose
voice Eva had heard and followed.

And as she turned away from the little brook, whose course and her own
had so long been the same, it seemed to her that even the silvery ripple
of its waters died away into silence; and, looking back once more, after
she had taken a few steps, upon the way by which she had come, lo! the
brook and its waters had wholly disappeared, and an impenetrable forest
had already closed up the path behind her.




                              CHAPTER III.
                      _THE GIFT OF THE FOUNTAIN._


I have said that Eva wondered at nothing which came to pass in this land
through which she was wandering; nothing surprised her, but the most
singular occurrences appeared natural; and so it did not seem at all
strange to her that the path and the brook should be swallowed up, as it
were, by the dark, hungry, impenetrable forest; and it was almost with a
feeling of pleasure at the change that after the one hurried glance she
gave to the path by which she had come, and which was now no longer to
be seen, that she