sloped downwards, and pretty steeply, so that it was somewhat of a
scramble; yet still she kept a sharp look-out, but no primroses did
she see, except a few here and there upon the ground, which had been
plucked too close to their poor heads to be held in anybody's hands.
These showed the way, however, and Ida picked them up in sheer pity
and carried them with her.

"This is how Hop-o'-my-Thumb found his way home," she thought.

At the bottom of the hill ran a little brook, and on the opposite side
of the brook was a bank, and on the top of the bank was a hedge, and
under the hedge were the primroses. But the brook was between!

Ida looked and hesitated. It was too wide to jump across, and here, as
elsewhere, there was more water than usual. To turn back, however, was
out of the question. Gerda would not have been daunted in her search
by coming to a stream, nor would any one else that ever was read of in
fairy tales. It is true that in Fairy-land there are advantages which
cannot always be reckoned upon by commonplace children in this
commonplace world. When the straw, the coal, and the bean came to a
rivulet in their travels, the straw laid himself across as a bridge
for the others, and had not the coal been a degree too hot on that
unlucky occasion, they might (for anything Ida knew to the contrary)
still have been pursuing their journey in these favourable
circumstances. But a travelling-companion who expands into a bridge on
an emergency is not to be met with every day; and as to poor Ida--she
was alone. She stood first on one leg, and then on the other, she
looked at the water, and then at the primroses, and then at the water
again, and at last perceived that in one place there was a large,
flat, moss-covered stone in the middle of the stream, which stood well