o marry you, only, unfortunately, he is
blind, and cannot see how pretty you are.' And for this blindness Maia
felt truly glad, as she did not want a mole for a husband.

However, by-and-by he paid his promised visit, and Maia did not like
him at all. He might be as rich and learned as possible, but he hated
the sun, and the trees, and the flowers, and all that Maia loved best.
To be sure, being blind, he had never seen them, and, like many other
people, he thought that anything _he_ did not know was not worth
knowing. But Maia's tales amused him, though he would not for the
world have let her see it, and he admired her voice when she sang:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?

Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree-top;

though he told her that it was all nonsense, and that trees and
gardens were mere foolishness. When she was _his_ wife he would teach
her things better worth learning.

'Meanwhile,' he said, with a grand air, 'I have burrowed a passage
from this house to my own, in which you can walk; but I warn you not
to be frightened at a great dead creature that has fallen through a
hole in the roof, and is lying on one side.'

'What sort of creature is it?' asked Maia eagerly.

'Oh, I really can't tell you,' answered the mole, indifferently; 'it
is covered with something soft, and it has two thin legs, and a long
sharp thing sticking out of its head.'

'It is a bird,' cried Maia joyfully, 'and I love birds! It must have
died of cold,' she added, dropping her voice. 'Oh! good Mr. Mole, do
take me to see it!'

'Come then, as I am going home,' replied the mole. And calling to the
old field-mouse to accompany them, they all set out.

'Here it is,' said the mole at last; 'dear me, how thankful I am Fate
did not make me a bird. They can't say anything but "twit, twit," and
die with the first breath of cold.'

'Ah, yes, poor useless creature,' answered the field-mouse. But while
they were talking, Maia crept round to the other side and stroked the
feathers of the little swallow, and kissed his eyes.

All that night she lay awake, thinking of the swallow lying dead in
the passage. At length she could bear it no longer, and stole away to
the place where the hay was kept, and wove a thick carpet. Next she
went to the field-mouse's store of cotton which she picked in the
summer from some of the marsh flowers, and carrying them both down the
passage, she tucked the cotton underneath th