our lives, excepting for
the two hours of twilight. There was no one to sow the crops, or water
the grass, so it all failed, and the trees died, and our houses fell,
and our possessions were stolen from us."

"It is a very sad thing," observed the apple-woman; and then she said
that she must go, for she had a long way to walk before she should
reach the little brook that led to the country of her own queen; so
she kissed the two children, Jack and Mopsa, and they begged her again
to think better of it, and return to her own land. But she said No;
she had no heart for work now, and could not bear either cold or
poverty.

Then the woman who was hugging her little baby, and keeping it cosy
and warm, began to tell Jack and Mopsa that it was time they should
begin to run away to the country over the purple mountains, or else
the Queen would overtake them and be very angry with them; so, with
many promises that they would mind her directions, they set off hand
in hand to run; but before they left her they could see plainly that
she was beginning to turn again into stone. However, she had given
them a slice of melon with the seeds in it. It had been growing on the
edge of the river, and was stone in the day-time, like everything
else. "When you are tired," she said, "eat the seeds, and they will
enable you to go running on. You can put the slice into this little
red pot, which has string handles to it, and you can hang it on your
arm. While you have it with you it will not turn to stone, but if you
lay it down it will, and then it will be useless."

So, as I said before, Jack and Mopsa set off hand in hand to run; and
as they ran all the things and people gradually and softly settled
themselves to turn into stone again. Their cloaks and gowns left off
fluttering, and hung stiffly; and then they left off their
occupations, and sat down, or laid down themselves; and the sheep and
cattle turned stiff and stone-like too, so that in a very little while
all that country was nothing but red stones and red sand, just as it
had been in the morning.

Presently the full moon, which had been hiding behind a cloud, came
out, and they saw their shadows, which fell straight before them; so
they ran on hand in hand very merrily till the half-moon came up, and
the shadows she made them cast fell sideways. This was rather awkward,
because as long as only the full moon gave them shadows, they had but
to follow them, in order to go straight