tly
pursuing me, and I shall have no peace; if once I fall into his hands, I
shall be his slave forever. The bird is not his friend, for the race of
gnomes have no friends. Speak to it again, and see if it will sing to
you, for you are its mistress."

"Sing to me, sweet bird," said Hulda, in a caressing tone, and the
little bird quivered its wings and bowed its head several times; then it
opened its beak and sang:

"Where's the ring?
Oh the ring, my master stole the ring,
And he holds it while I sing,
In the middle of the world.
Where's the ring?
Where the long green Lizard curled
All its length, and made a spring
Fifty leagues along.
There he stands,
With his brown hands,

And sings to the Lizard a wonderful song.
And he gives the white stone to that Lizard fell,
For he fears it--and loves it passing well."

"What!" said Hulda, "did the pedlar steal my mother's ring--that old
opal ring which I told him I could not let him have?"

"Child," replied the fairy, "be not sorry for his treachery; this theft
I look to for my last hope for recovering the wand."

"How so?" asked Hulda.

"It is a common thing among mortals," replied the fairy, "to say the
thing which is not true, and do the thing which is not honest; but among
the other races of beings who inhabit this world the penalty of mocking
and imitating the vices of you, the superior race, is, that if ever one
of us can be convicted of it, that one, be it gnome, sprite, or fairy,
is never permitted to appear in the likeness of humanity again, nor to
walk about on the face of the land which is your inheritance. Now the
gnomes hate one another, and if it should be discovered by the brethren
of this my enemy that he stole the opal ring, they will not fail to
betray him. There is, therefore, no doubt, little Hulda, that he carries
both the ring and the wand about with him wherever he goes, and if in
all your walks and during your whole life you should see him again, and
go boldly up to him and demand the stolen stone, he will be compelled
instantly to burrow his way down again into the earth, and leave behind
him all his ill-gotten gains."

"There is, then, still some hope," said Hulda, in a happier voice; "but
where, dear fairy, have you hidden yourself so long?"

"I have passed a dreary time," replied the fairy. "I have been compelled
to leave Europe and fly across to Africa, for my enemy inha