but as
everybody else looked extremely grave, he tried to be grave too. It
was about Cock-Robin and Jenny Wren, how they made a wedding feast,
and how the wren said she should wear her brown gown, and the old dog
brought a bone to the feast.

"He had brought them," he said, "some meat on a bone:
They were welcome to pick it or leave it alone."

The fairies were very attentive to this song; they seemed, if one may
judge by their looks, to think it was rather a serious one. Then they
drank Jack's health, and afterwards looked at him as if they expected
him to sing too; but as he did not begin, he presently heard them
whispering, and one asking another, "Do you think he knows manners?"

So he thought he had better try what he could do, and he stood up and
sang a song that he had often heard his nurse sing in the nursery at
home.

One morning, oh! so early, my beloved, my beloved,
All the birds were singing blithely, as if never they would cease;
'Twas a thrush sang in my garden, "Hear the story, hear the story!"
And the lark sang, "Give us glory!"
And the dove said, "Give us peace!"

Then I listened, oh! so early, my beloved, my beloved,
To that murmur from the woodland of the dove, my dear, the dove;
When the nightingale came after, "Give us fame to sweeten duty!"
When the wren sang, "Give us beauty!"
She made answer, "Give us love!"

Sweet is spring, and sweet the morning, my beloved, my beloved;
Now for us doth spring, doth morning, wait upon the year's
increase,
And my prayer goes up, "Oh, give us, crowned in youth with marriage
glory,
Give for all our life's dear story,
Give us love, and give us peace!"

"A very good song too," said the dame, at the other end of the table;
"only you made a mistake in the first verse. What the dove really said
was, no doubt, 'Give us peas.' All kinds of doves and pigeons are very
fond of peas."

"It isn't peas, though," said Jack. However, the court historian was
sent for to write down the song, and he came with a quill pen, and
wrote it down as the dame said it ought to be.

Now all this time Mopsa sat between the two Jacks, and she looked very
mournful,--she hardly said a word.

When the feast was over, and everything had vanished, the musicians
came in, for there was to be dancing; but while they were striking
up, the white fairy stepped in, and, coming up,