“Where are all the fairies gone to?” asked Jack.
“I never take any notice of that common trash and their doings,” she answered. “When the Queen takes to telling her stories they are generally frightened, and go and sit in the tops of the trees.”
“But you seem very fond of Mopsa,” said Jack, “and she is one of them. You will help me to take care of her, won’t you, till she grows a little older?”
“Grows!” said the apple-woman, laughing. “Grows! Why you don’t think, surely, that she will ever be any different from what she is now!”
“I thought she would grow up,” said Jack.
“They never change so long as they last,” answered the apple-woman, “when once they are one-foot-one high.”
“Mopsa,” said Jack, “come here, and I’ll measure you.”
Mopsa came dancing towards Jack, and he tried to measure her, first with a yard measure that the apple-woman took out of her pocket, and then with a stick, and then with a bit of string; but Mopsa would not stand steady, and at last it ended in their having a good game of romps together, and a race; but when he carried her back, sitting on his shoulder, he was sorry to see that the apple-woman was crying again, and he asked her kindly what she did it for.
“It is because,” she answered, “I shall never see my own country any more, nor any men and women and children, excepting such as by a rare chance stray in for a little while as you have done.”
“I can go back whenever I please,” said Jack. “Why don’t you?”