ent about among the stones all day, and as the sun got low both
the shadows and the blocks themselves became more and more like
people, and if you went close you could now see features, very sweet,
quiet features, but the eyes were all shut.

By this time the apple-woman began to feel very sad. She knew she
should soon have to leave Jack and Mopsa, and she said to Mopsa, as
they finished their evening meal, "I wish you would ask the
inhabitants a few questions, dear, before I go, for I want to know
whether they can put you in the way how to cross the purple
mountains."

Jack said nothing, for he thought he would see what Mopsa was going to
do; so when she got up and went towards the shape that was like a
cradle he followed, and the apple-woman too. Mopsa went to the figure
that sat by the cradle. It was a stone yet, but when Mopsa laid her
little warm hand on its bosom it smiled.

"Dear," said Mopsa, "I wish you would wake."

A curious little sound was now heard, but the figure did not move, and
the apple-woman lifted Mopsa on to the lap of the statue; then she put
her arms round its neck, and spoke to it again very distinctly: "Dear!
why don't you wake? You had better wake now; the baby's crying."

Jack now observed that the sound he had heard was something like the
crying of a baby. He also heard the figure answering Mopsa. It said,
"I am only a stone!"

"Then," said Mopsa, "I am not a queen yet. I cannot wake her. Take me
down."

"I am not warm," said the figure; and that was quite true, and yet she
was not a stone now which reminded one of a woman, but a woman that
reminded one of a stone.

All the west was very red with the sunset, and the river was red too,
and Jack distinctly saw some of the coils of rope glide down from the
trees and slip into the water; next he saw the stones that had looked
like sheep raise up their heads in the twilight, and then lift
themselves and shake their woolly sides. At that instant the large
white moon heaved up her pale face between two dark blue hills, and
upon this the statue put out its feet and gently rocked the cradle.

Then it spoke again to Mopsa: "What was it that you wished me to tell
you?"

"How to find the way over those purple mountains," said Mopsa.

"You must set off in an hour, then," said the woman; and she had
hardly anything of the stone about her now. "You can easily find it by
night without any guide, but nothing can ever take you to it by
day."