107
The Queen. 114
The Apple Woman. 156
They Run Away From Old Mother Fate. 162
The Queen's Farewell. 234

CHAPTER I.

ABOVE THE CLOUDS.

"And can this be my own world?
'Tis all gold and snow,
Save where scarlet waves are hurled
Down yon gulf below."
"'Tis thy world, 'tis my world,
City, mead, and shore,
For he that hath his own world
Hath many worlds more."

A boy, whom I knew very well, was once going through a meadow, which
was full of buttercups. The nurse and his baby sister were with him;
and when they got to an old hawthorn, which grew in the hedge and was
covered with blossom, they all sat down in its shade, and the nurse
took out three slices of plum-cake, gave one to each of the children,
and kept one for herself.

While the boy was eating, he observed that this hedge was very high
and thick, and that there was a great hollow in the trunk of the old
thorn-tree, and he heard a twittering, as if there was a nest
somewhere inside; so he thrust his head in, twisted himself round, and
looked up.

It was a very great thorn-tree, and the hollow was so large that two
or three boys could have stood upright in it; and when he got used to
the dim light in that brown, still place, he saw that a good way above
his head there was a nest,--rather a curious one, too, for it was as
large as a pair of blackbirds would have built,--and yet it was made
of fine white wool and delicate bits of moss; in short, it was like a
goldfinch's nest magnified three times.

Just then he thought he heard some little voices cry, "Jack! Jack!"
His baby sister was asleep, and the nurse was reading a story-book, so
it could not have been either of them who called. "I must get in
here," said the boy. "I wish this hole was larger." So he began to
wriggle and twist himself through, and just as he pulled in his last
foot, he looked up, and three heads which had been peeping over the
edge of the nest suddenly popped down again.

"Those heads had no beaks, I am sure," said Jack, and he stood on
tiptoe and poked in one of his fingers. "And the things have no
feathers," he continued; so, the hollow being rather rugged, he
managed to climb up and look in.

His eyes were not u