"You must get your wedding clothes ready this summer," said the field-mouse. "You must be well provided with linen and worsted. My neighbor the mole will wish a well-dressed bride."
The mole had said he wished to marry little Thumbelina before the cold winter came again.
So Thumbelina sat at the spinning-wheel through the long summer days, spinning and weaving with four little spiders to help her.
In the evening the mole came to visit her. "Summer will soon be over," he said, "and we shall be married."
But oh! little Thumbelina did not wish the summer to end.
Live with the dull old mole, who hated the sunshine, who would not listen to the song of the birds—live underground with him! Little Thumbelina wished the summer would never end.
The spinning and weaving were over now. All the wedding clothes were ready. Autumn was come.
"Only four weeks and the wedding-day will have come," said the field-mouse.
And little Thumbelina wept.
"I will not marry the tiresome old mole," she said.