"Take me on your shoulder," he said to Fairyfoot, "and I will show you the way."
Fairyfoot took him up, and they went their way through the forest. And the strange part of it was that though Fairyfoot thought he knew ill the forest by heart, every path they took was new to him, and more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before. The moonlight seemed to grow brighter and purer at every step, and the sleeping flowers sweeter and lovelier, and the moss greener and thicken Fairyfoot felt so happy and gay that he forgot he had ever been sad and lonely in his life.
Robin Goodfellow, too, seemed to be in very good spirits. He related a great many stories to Fairyfoot, and, singularly enough, they were all about himself and divers and sundry fairy ladies who had been so very much attached to him that he scarcely expected to find them alive at the present moment. He felt quite sure they must have died of grief in his absence.
"I have caused a great deal of trouble in the course of my life," he said, regretfully, shaking his head. "I have sometimes wished I could avoid it, but that is impossible. Ahem! When my great-aunt's grandmother rashly and inopportunely changed me into a robin, I was having a little flirtation with a little creature who was really quite attractive. I might have decided to engage myself to her. She was very charming. Her name was Gauzita. To-morrow I shall go and place flowers on her tomb."
"I thought fairies never died," said Fairyfoot.
"Only on rare occasions, and only from love," answered Robin. "They needn't die unless they wish to. They have been known to do it through love. They frequently wish they hadn't afterward—in fact, invariably—and then they can come to life again. But Gauzita—"
"Are you quite sure she is dead?" asked Fairyfoot.
"Sure!" cried Mr. Goodfellow, in wild indignation, "why, she hasn't seen me for a couple of years. I've moulted twice since last we met. I congratulate myself that she didn't see me then," he added, in a lower voice. "Of course she's dead," he added, with solemn emphasis; "as dead as a door nail."
Just then Fairyfoot heard some enchanting sounds, faint, but clear. They were sounds of delicate music and of tiny laughter, like the ringing of fairy bells.
"Ah!" said Robin Goodfellow, "there they are! But it seems to me they are rather gay, considering they have not seen me for so long. Turn into the path."