And well she might start, for in the midst of a kind of steamy odor, like the essence of fifty kitchens of fifty hotels, added to fifty pastry cooks’ shops and fifty fruit gardens in the sun, she heard a gurgle which turned into a voice.

“Good to eat! Roasted, stewed, boiled—which shall it be?” said some one who popped out and laid a hand with such suddenness upon her shoulder that Kitty almost dropped with fright.

Apple-Pie Corner.—Page 193.

The creature who held her so tight was dressed from head to foot in white linen; he wore an apron and white cap like a French cook. He twirled a knife, and looked at Kitty with a pair of bloodshot eyes. His cheeks were purple and pendulous, his figure was flabby and fat; it suggested two suet puddings placed 201on the top of each other, and set upon a pair of legs. What with his pendulous cheeks and his bloodshot eyes, he reminded Kitty of an overfed pug dog.

“Indeed, I am not at all good to eat—not in any way,” said Kitty with an attempt at dignity, but in a quavering voice.

“If you’re not good to eat, then you are ready to eat. Eat or be eaten—that is all life in a nut-shell.” The creature chuckled.

Kitty felt rather nervous under the glance of his rolling red eyes, so she did not like to suggest there was something else to be done than to eat or be eaten.

“Would you please tell me,” she said politely, “where this road leads to?”

“Where to! why, to a lot of places. Apple-pie Corner—Vanilla-cream Pond—Almond-rock Valley—Barley-sugar Field—Chocolate Pavilion—lawn tennis with plum-pudding balls—”

“Oh, don’t—don’t!” cried Kitty, putting up her hands to her ears. “It sounds as if the world were nothing but a big dinner-table.”

202“You’ve hit it to a T! A big dinner-table—with everything in it eating or being eaten,” and the creature panted out his words.

“Pray,” said Kitty, jerking her head back, “would you let me pass? I am in such a hurry.”

“Not till you have chosen what you will do—eat or be eaten,” said the creature hoarsely.

“Well, of course, I had rather eat,” said Kitty reluctantly.

“Pass on, then!” said the being of the pendulous cheeks, loosing his grasp. And then as Kitty ran along she heard him puffing, panting, rumbling out:

“Eat or be eaten—eat or be eaten.”

“What an old prose he is!” thought Kitty. “One idea goes a long way with him. If he is a goblin, they should call him ‘Gobbling’ Greediness.”

“Goblin Greediness. Take care!” whispered the guardian child.

“Oh!” cried Kitty, laughing, “I need only think of his fat, flabby cheeks and his bloodshot eyes to lose all care for eating, were I ever so hungry!”

203The air seemed to be made up of the scent of everything she liked best—ripe strawberries and vanilla-cream, with a touch of pine-apples and peach. All at once there came a great puff of chocolate perfume.

“Lo—ove—ly!” sighed Kitty, shutting her eyes and sniffing.

“Ex—cel—lent!” chuckled the naughty sprite, opening its nose.

“Shut your nose,” whispered the guardian child anxiously.

Kitty laughed. She thought it was just a little exacting of the guardian child to advise her to shut her nose. What harm could there be in a perfume, especially if in smelling it she kept her eyes fixed upon the star, and she did not stray from the path?

The odor grew more and more enticing. She took in deeper and deeper breaths of that smell of ripe sunlighty fruit with an entrancing suggestion of burnt almonds stealing upon the breeze.

“It is dangerous! it is dangerous! Think of the Christmas blessing for Johnnie! Think 204of the fog picture of the greedy children!” murmured the guardian child restlessly.

“Oh! what harm can there be in smelling a taste?” laughed Kitty, with a confident glance first at the glistening little figure standing erect and watchful on her right shoulder, then giving a peep round to the sprite, who was sniffing with a look of expectation.

“You are not hungry! you are not thirsty!” whispered the guardian child.

The naughty sprite jogged Kitty’s cheek in a friendly fashion, and pointed with its furry paw. She gave a sidelong look in the direction it indicated. Then she paused in amazement. Was it fruit-country they were going through? No wonder it smelled so sweet! Hot-house fruit and garden fruit grew together in glowing profusion. There were fields of strawberry-beds, where the red berries shone like elfin lanterns through the fresh green leaves. There were plantations of bananas, and each banana was like a hatchet of gold. There were martial-looking pine-apples burnished like copper helmets, guarded by pale-green swords of 205spiky leaves. Enormous bunches of grapes hung down, each grape big as a plum; purple grapes, grapes blue on one side, redly transparent on the other; white grapes golden and gleaming. And oh! the peaches and the nectarines were as plentiful as blackberries.

A thousand tiny voices seemed to be calling to Kitty in audible gusts of perfume: “Eat us! taste us! with the touch of sunshine upon us!”

“Is there any any harm to pluck and eat some of that delicious fruit?” asked Kitty, who had never felt such a desire to set her teeth in a juicy peach.

“No Christmas! no blessing! no Johnnie! if you loiter,” murmured the guardian child. “You are not in need of food. You are not hungry—you are not thirsty—it would be greediness.”

“Suck!” said the naughty sprite. He had plucked an enormous strawberry and put it to Kitty’s mou............