"So are you, now," snapped the spider, "But the flies won't help you."
"But perhaps you will," pleaded the fairy.
"Perhaps I won't," said the spider, going back into her house and leaving the little fairy, who felt very sorrowful.
Her tears fell like dew drops on the spider web, and the sun shone on them, and made them as bright as the fairy queen's diamonds.
The fairy began to think of the queen and the court, and the bundle of dreams; and she wondered who would do the work if she never got free. The fairy queen had always trusted her, and had sent her on many errands.
Once she had been sent to free a mocking-bird that had been shut in a cage. She remembered how he sang in his cage, although he was longing for his green tree tops.
She smiled through her tears when she thought of this, and said to herself:—
"I can be singing, too! It is better than crying."
Then she began to sing one of her fairy songs:—
"Oh! listen well, and I will tell,
Of the land where the fairies dwell;
The lily bells ring clear and sweet,
And grass grows green beneath your feet
In the land where the fairies dwell,
In the land where the fairies dwell."