"When bale is att hyest, boote is nyest."
Ballad of Sir Aldingar.

By this time, my hostess was quite anxious that I should be gone. So,
with warm thanks for their hospitality, I took my leave, and went my way
through the little garden towards the forest. Some of the garden flowers
had wandered into the wood, and were growing here and there along
the path, but the trees soon became too thick and shadowy for them. I
particularly noticed some tall lilies, which grew on both sides of
the way, with large dazzlingly white flowers, set off by the universal
green.

It was now dark enough for me to see that every flower was
shining with a light of its own. Indeed it was by this light that I
saw them, an internal, peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not
reflected from a common source of light as in the daytime. This light
sufficed only for the plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast
any but the faintest shadows around it, or to illuminate any of the
neighbouring objects with other than the faintest tinge of its own
individual hue.

From the lilies above mentioned, from the campanulas,
from the foxgloves, and every bell-shaped flower, curious little figures
shot up their heads, peeped at me, and drew back. They seemed to inhabit
them, as snails their shells but I was sure some of them were intruders,
and belonged to the gnomes or goblin-fairies, who inhabit the ground
and earthy creeping plants.