incess drew near.

"Are you coming to the blue moon?" called the fay, and his voice
whistled and shrewed to them like the voice of a wind.

Hands-pansy gave back answer stoutly: "Yes, yes, we are coming!" And
indeed what better could he say?

"But," cried Nillywill, holding back for a moment, "what will the blue
moon do for us?"

"Once you are there," answered the moon-fay, "you can have your wish and
your heart's desire; but only once in a blue moon can you have it. Are
you coming?"

"We are coming!" cried Nillywill. "Oh, let us make haste!"

"Tread softly," whispered the moon-fay, "and stoop well under these
boughs, for if anything awakes to behold the blue moon, the memory of
it can never die. On earth only the nightingale of all living things has
beheld a blue moon; and the triumph and pain of that memory wakens him
ever since to sing all night long. Tread softly, lest others waken and
learn to cry after us; for we in the blue moon have our sleep troubled
by those who cry for a blue moon to return." He looked towards
Nillywill, and smiled with friendly eyes. "Come!" he said again, and all
at once they had leapt upon the sledge, and the reindeer were running
fast down toward the sea.

The blue moon was resting with its lower rim upon the waters. At that
sight, before they were clear of the avenues of the garden, one of the
reindeer tossed up his great branching horns and snorted aloud for joy.
With a soft stir in the thick boughs overhead, a bird with a great trail
of feathers moved upon its perch.

The sledge, gliding from land, passed out over the smoothed waters,
running swiftly as upon ice; and the reflection of the stars shone up
like glow-worms as Nillywill and Hands-pansy, in the moon-fay's company,
sped away along its bright surface.

The still air whistled through the reindeers' horns; so fast they went
that the trees and the hanging gardens and the palace walls melted away
from view like wreaths of smoke. Sky and sea became one magic sapphire
drawing them in towards the centre of its life, to the heart of the blue
moon itself.

When the blue moon had set below the sea, then far behind upon the land
they had left the leaves rustled and drew themselves sharply together,
shuddering to get rid of the stony stillness, and the magic hues in
which they had been dyed; and again the nightingale broke out into
passionate triumph and complaint.

Then also from the bough which the reindeer had brushed wit