'How are we to cross it,' asked Hildegarde. 'Surely this is Fairyland itself at last?' but their guide shook her head.
'No, not Fairyland itself,' she replied, 'though on the way to it. Real Fairyland is still far away. I can only do as I promised you—show you some of the countries that lie between your land and it. Boats are not needed here. What you see is not water but air, and with these you will easily make your way across the lake.'
So saying, she drew from under her mantle something white and fluffy, which proved to be two little pairs of wings, one pair for each child, which she slipped over their heads. They fitted as if they had always grown there, and, light as they had felt themselves before, Hildegarde and Leonore now seemed to themselves to be made of air itself.
'Off with you,' said the fairy laughing, with a little toss of her hand towards the children as if they had been two balls of thistle-down. 'When you have seen enough and want to go home you will easily find me; you have only to listen for the whirr of my spinning-wheel.'
And she was no longer there.
Flying or swimming, which was it? They could scarcely have told. For though their wings kept them up as lightly as any bird, their feet too seemed to move in time with their wings.
'Isn't it lovely?' said Hildegarde, and Leonore, who at first felt a little breathless, laughed back in agreement. But this journey through the blue soon came to an end. The wings seemed to be their guides, for they suddenly dropped on their shoulders, and the children found themselves standing in front of another silver gate, higher and more imposing than the former one. It glittered so that for a moment or two they were dazzled, but as their eyes grew accustomed to the brilliance, looking up, they saw worked in, among the silvery trellis, some letters, which with a little difficulty they spelt out.
'Singing-school,' were the words they read.
'Singing-school,' repeated Hildegarde, 'what can that mean?'
'And the fairy said we should soon meet some old friends,' added Leonore. 'Oh, Hildegarde,' and she held up her hand, 'I think I understand, listen.' They stood perfectly still and gradually sweet sounds reached their ears—a soft warbling as of many little voices in harmony. Then came a moment's silence, followed by the notes of a single singer, then warbling again—and again another voice alone, trilling high, high, till it seemed to melt away in the distance.