Mopsa seemed to answer in quite a pleasant voice, as if she was not afraid:
“No, you’d much better wake.” And then she went on, “Jack! Jack! why don’t you wake?”
Then all on a sudden Jack opened his eyes, and found that he was lying quietly on the grass, that little Mopsa really had asked him why he did not wake. He saw the Queen too, standing by, looking at him, and saying to herself, “I did not put him to sleep. I did not put him to sleep.”
“We don’t want any more stories to-day, Queen,” said the apple-woman, in a disrespectful tone, and she immediately began to sing, clattering some tea-things all the time, for a kettle was boiling on some sticks, and she was going to make tea out of doors:
“The marten flew to the finch’s nest,
Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay:
‘The arrow it sped to thy brown mate’s breast;
Low in the broom is thy mate to-day.’
“‘Liest thou low, love? low in the broom?
Feathers and moss, and a wisp of hay,