he apple-woman, laughing. "Grows! Why you don't think,
surely, that she will ever be any different from what she is now?"

"I thought she would grow up," said Jack.

"They never change so long as they last," answered the apple-woman,
"when once they are one-foot-one high."

"Mopsa," said Jack, "come here, and I'll measure you."

Mopsa came dancing towards Jack, and he tried to measure her, first
with a yard measure that the apple-woman took out of her pocket, and
then with a stick, and then with a bit of string; but Mopsa would not
stand steady, and at last it ended in their having a good game of
romps together, and a race; but when he carried her back, sitting on
his shoulder, he was sorry to see that the apple-woman was crying
again, and he asked her kindly what she did it for.

"It is because," she answered, "I shall never see my own country any
more, nor any men and women and children, excepting such as by a rare
chance stray in for a little while as you have done."

"I can go back whenever I please," said Jack. "Why don't you?"

"Because I came in of my own good-will, after I had had fair warning
that if I came at all it would end in my staying always. Besides, I
don't know that I exactly wish to go home again: I should be afraid."

"Afraid of what?" asked Jack.

"Why, there's the rain and the cold, and not having anything to eat
excepting what you earn. And yet," said the apple-woman, "I have three
boys of my own at home; one of them must be nearly a man by this time,
and the youngest is about as old as you are. If I went home I might
find one or more of those boys in jail, and then how miserable I
should be."

"But you are not happy as it is," said Jack. "I have seen you cry."

"Yes," said the apple-woman; "but now I live here I don't care about
anything so much as I used to do. 'May I have a satin gown and a
coach?' I asked, when first I came. 'You may have a hundred and fifty
satin gowns if you like,' said the Queen, 'and twenty coaches with six
cream-colored horses to each.' But when I had been here a little time,
and found I could have everything I wished for, and change it as
often as I pleased, I began not to care for anything; and at last I
got so sick of all their grand things that I dressed myself in my own
clothes that I came in, and made up my mind to have a stall and sit at
it, as I used to do, selling apples. And I used to say to myself, 'I
have but to wish with all my heart to go home, a