'It's gone back again,' she said, 'and it flies so fast you couldn't see it. It just whistles a message. Oh, it's quite a common thing; but, oh dear, dear, what shall we do about the collation?' and at her words all the other little women started wringing their hands again, while the babies screamed.
Hildegarde looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or to pity them, but Leonore felt very sorry for them; then a brilliant thought struck her.
'Supposing you carry it out here,' she said, 'to the middle of the square—the collation, I mean. We could sit down on the ground and eat it quite comfortably.'
And indeed so far as the quantity was concerned, there was not likely to be any difficulty. 'If they've planned it according to their own size,' Leonore whispered to Hildegarde, 'we could eat it all up like a dolls' feast in half a minute.'
'Yes,' Hildegarde replied in the same tone. 'I only hope it is something we can eat. Not roasted flies, or anything like that.'
The little women had seized Leonore's suggestion with delight, and were now busily employed in carrying out the feast. They first placed a table—a huge table they evidently thought it, though it was only about two feet long—in the middle of the square, and then carried out the dishes, of which, the little girls were glad to see, there were not, after all, above half a dozen.
Then the gnome lady who had first spoken to them seated herself at one end, and Hildegarde and Leonore took their places on the ground at each side, the crowd of little women, rushing about to wait upon them, tucking their babies under one arm in an original fashion of their own.
'What may I have the pleasure of helping you to first?' said the small hostess. She had now quite recovered her spirits, and spoke in a very elegant manner, moving her hands airily over the dishes, having plumped down her baby on the ground beside her, where it lay quite contentedly sucking its thumbs.
'Thank you,' said Hildegarde, 'please give us anything you like.'