fairies that dwelt there, and the strange elfin creatures, and the
perils that travellers fell into with robbers and wild beasts; and still
I referred the scene of every story I read directly to those very woods
upon the hill-side, although they were so near that I could see them
plainly enough from the windows of the cheerful rooms at home.

Time passed along in its usual way; but before I had acquired knowledge
or strength of mind enough to correct my early impressions of the woods,
I had permission, one bright afternoon in June, to go with an older
sister to a strawberry meadow across the creek. We were accompanied by
some little maidens, who were older and more adventurous than me; and so
it happened that when we did not find the fruit so abundant as we could
wish, they persuaded us to go into another field, and then into another,
I little thought where, until I became suddenly sensible of a shaded
light around me, of a breeze a little cooler than that which tempered
the warm air of the valley, and a low, wild music that I had never heard
before; and looking up, I saw that we were actually upon the ascent of
the hill which led up to the dreaded woods.

Strange and almost horror-struck as I felt, I did not scream out,
(perhaps I should not have had breath to do so,) but I gathered up all
the wisdom that my little heart could boast, into the resolution not to
look at the woods, not to think of them; for we should soon go back
again, I thought, and nothing would happen. And my young friends can
judge how terrified I must have grown, when I heard one of the girls
begin to talk of the beautiful flowers her brother had brought her from
the woods, and end by proposing that we should go there, and get some
for ourselves. I waited breathlessly to hear the objections which I
doubted not would be urged against this plan, but none were offered; and
when I ventured to remonstrate, they paid so little attention to me,