could only be loosened by dipping it into a hidden fountain. What
fountain it is I do not know; but some old priest, who lives in a town
on the mouth of a river, knows."

This was discouraging for Rosamond, there are so many towns and
rivers, and so many old priests, in the world. She looked on the map,
and thought it must be Paris, for that is not so very far from the
sea, and there they know every thing. So, with her mother's leave, and
some jewels she gave her, she went off to Paris, taking a bit of the
mirror set in a gilt frame. When she arrived there, what was her
surprise to find the city entirely inhabited by birds and animals!
Parrots and peacocks prevailed, but ospreys and jackdaws, vultures and
cormorants, crows and cockerels, and many, many other kinds of birds
were also fluttering about, making a perpetual whizzing. Then there
were hundreds of monkeys, all jauntily dressed, with little canes in
their hands, and a great many camels and spaniels, and other animals,
wild and tame, in neat linen blouses. What bewildered her still more,
was to see that they were all skating about on the thinnest possible
ice. Why it did not crack, to let them all through, she could not
imagine. At first she was afraid even to set her foot upon it, but
soon found herself skating merrily about, enjoying it as much as any
of them. Another queer thing was, that, reflected in the ice, all
these birds and animals appeared to be men and women; and she saw that
in her own reflection she was a nice little girl. She wondered how she
looked in her mirror, and took it out to see. "What kind of an animal
am I?" she exclaimed. "O, I see--an ibex. What neat little horns, and
how bright my eyes are! What would Alfred say if he knew I was an
ibex?"

She called out to the skaters to ask them if they would look into her