But one night, when she was lying in her pretty little bed which was an elegant walnut-shell, an ugly old toad crept in through a broken pane in the window. She hopped on to the table where Thumbelina lay asleep.
'This would make a beautiful wife for my son,' said the toad, taking up the walnut-shell, with Thumbelina inside, and hopping with it through the window into the garden.
There flowed a great wide stream, with slippery and marshy banks; here the toad lived with her son. Ugh! how ugly and clammy he was, just like his mother! 'Croak, croak, croak!' was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl in the walnut- shell.
