Woe! woe! woe!"

The bird sang in such a sorrowful voice, and fluttered its golden wings
so mournfully, that Hulda wept.

"Alas! alas!" she said, "I have done very wrong. I have lost the wand
forever! Oh, what shall I do, dear little bird? Do tell me."

But the bird did not sing again, and it was now time to go to bed. The
old nurse came out to fetch Hulda. She had been looking all over the
castle for her, and been wondering where she could have hidden herself.

In Norway, at midsummer, the nights are so short that the sun only dips
under the hills time enough to let one or two stars peep out before he
appears again. The people, therefore, go to bed in the broad sunlight.

"Child," said the old nurse, "look how late you are--it is nearly
midnight. Come, it is full time for bed. This is Midsummer day."

"Midsummer day!" repeated Hulda. "Ah, how sorry I am! Then this is a day
when I might have seen the fairy. How very, very foolish I have been!"

Hulda laid her beautiful bracelet upon a table in her room, where she
could see it, and kissed the little bird before she got into bed. She
had been asleep a long time when a little sobbing voice suddenly awoke
her, and she sat up to listen. The house was perfectly still; her cat
was curled up at the door, fast asleep; her bird's head was under its
wing; a long sunbeam was slanting down through an opening in the green
window-curtain, and the motes danced merrily in it.

"What could that noise have been?" said little Hulda, lying down again.
She had no sooner laid her head on the pillow than she heard it again;
and, turning round quickly to look at the bracelet, she saw the little
bird fluttering its wings, and close to it, with her hands covering her
face, the beautiful, long lost fairy.

"Oh, fairy, fairy! what have I done!" said Hulda. "You will never see
your wand again. The gnome has got it, and he has carried it down under
the ground, where he will hide it from us forever."

The fairy could not look up, nor answer. She remained weeping, with her
hands before her face, till the little golden bird began to chirp.

"Sing to us again, I pray you, beautiful bird!" said Hulda; "for you are
not friendly to the gnome. I am sure you are sorry for the poor fairy."

"Child," said the fairy, "be cautious what you say--that gnome is my
enemy; he disguised himself as a pedlar the better to deceive you, and
now he has got my wand he can discover where I am; he will be constan