ve, and her eyes looked
straight before her, as she sat upright in her chair. Whereupon the
apple-woman snatched up Mopsa, and, seizing Jack's hand, hurried him
off, exclaiming, "Come away! come away! She is going to tell one of
her stories; and if you listen, you'll be obliged to go to sleep, and
sleep nobody knows how long."

Jack did not want to go to sleep; he wished to go down to the river
again, and see what had become of his boat, for he had left his cap
and several other things in it.

So he parted from the apple-woman,--who took Mopsa with her, and said
he would find her again when he wanted her at her apple-stall,--and
went down to the boat, where he saw that his faithful hound was there
before him.

"It was lucky, master, that I came when I did," said the hound, "for a
dozen or so of those one-foot-one fellows were just shoving it off,
and you will want it at night to sleep in."

"Yes," said Jack; "and I can stretch the bit of purple silk to make a
canopy over head,--a sort of awning,--for I should not like to sleep
in tents or palaces that are inclined to melt away."

So the hound with his teeth, and Jack with his hands, pulled and
pulled at the silk till it was large enough to make a splendid canopy,
like a tent; and it reached down to the water's edge, and roofed in
all the after part of the boat.

So now he had a delightful little home of his own; and there was no
fear of its being blown away, for no wind ever blows in Fairyland. All
the trees are quite still, no leaf rustles, and the flowers lie on the
ground exactly where they fall.

After this Jack told the hound to watch his boat, and went himself in
search of the apple-woman. Not one fairy was to be seen, any more than
if he had been in his own country, and he wandered down the green
margin of the river till he saw the apple-woman sitting at a small
stall with apples on it, and cherries tied to sticks, and some
dry-looking nuts. She had Mopsa on her knee, and had washed her face,
and put a beautiful clean white frock on her.

"Where are all the fairies gone to?" asked Jack.

"I never take any notice of that common trash and their doings," she
answered. "When the Queen takes to telling her stories they are
generally frightened, and go and sit in the tops of the trees."

"But you seem very fond of Mopsa," said Jack, "and she is one of them.
You will help me to take care of her, won't you, tills she grows a
little older?"

"Grows!" said t