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CHAPTER III.

How the Frog REALLY "went a wooing," and how he was taken in by the Spider. The story invented by the Spider and the Duck.

You

may imagine that Rana passed a sleepless

night in thinking over all that the Oozly bird

had told him, so that he did not fall into a doze until an hour before sunrise, and was awake again by the time that the Lark began his morning toilet in the dewy grass on the slope of the island of Toppititti. His simple breakfast was soon prepared, and after eating a little, and packing up the remainder in his wallet, young Batrachian closed his house, slung his beloved. Mandolin over his shoulders, and bade farewell to the village where his life from babyhood had been spent. But he could not tear himself away without first going past the place where his Sauriana was sleeping. She might even be awake, and then whose voice but his would she desire to hear. He would tell her of his great enterprise, entreat her to be true to her first affection, bid her farewell till he should come back to claim her for his own.

There was the house of Master Frosch, Mayor and

Sandboy, shining in the morning sun in one of the best situations in Slosh, its great stone front all overgrown with moss, and the windows overlooking the warmest corner of the island of Toppititti.

It was to one of the back windows, reached by a sort of rough balcony, that Rana directed his attention, however, for it was there that the lovely Sauriana lay asleep in an inner chamber all hung with lichens and wild flowers.

Perhaps she was awake and would give him a parting word; he might even climb the balcony and take a tender farewell. The thought made him hasten onward ; he took his Mandolin from his shoulder, and began to tune it ready for the song with which he would call her attention to the voice of love.

Imagine his dismay, his doubt, his indignation, when across the doorway leading from the balcony to Sauriana's room he saw the Spider's web stretched like an ugly slimy curtain, and the artful Spider himself sitting on a ledge watching him as he came up the road.

"Aha!" said the Spider, with a sneering laugh, as he sat swinging his long legs about over the edge of his seat; "I see you are an early riser, Master Rana; but pray don't make a noise, or you will wake my friend Sauriana ; and as her father has made me her guardian, I must take care that she is not annoyed." And the Spider crossed his hairy arms, and sat rocking himself to and fro in silent laughter to see the poor Batrachian's melancholy face.

"I don't know what right you have to spin your web before that door," said Rana, at last; "and if Sauriana be awake, she will come out to speak to me; so stand aside, or I'll jump through your meshes and sweep you off that ledge, even though you are the Mayor's Attorney."

Stop!" said the Spider, crawling up a little higher, and trembling so that his web shook again. "I don't want to be uncivil, Mr. Schoolmaster; but if you come here to ask for charity, there is Master Frosch's steward round the corner. Miss Sauriana asked me particularly to wait, that I might take her for an excursion, and she begged that if the Parish Clerk should come, I would refer him to the steward. You know him, don't you? Mr. Snail, you'll find him in his little office round the corner; but as he's rather deaf, you must knock pretty loud before he'll come out. Pray don't stay. Miss Sauriana is dressing, and as she don't like street music, I shall be compelled to make you move on if you begin to play."

He said this because Rana, without taking any notice of his insolent speech, unslung his Mandolin and began to tune it. He thought that its sound might bring Sauriana to the window if she was really dressing, for already the false words of the Spider began to rankle in his heart, and he feared that his love might be untrue to him, now that she was moving in the great state that belonged to a Mayor's daughter.

The Spider was evidently a little uneasy, but he sat