round her throat once; then it grew too short to reach round her throat at all, and she was obliged to turn it into a bracelet. Then it became too short for her wrist, and she made it into a ring. And all the time her store of feathers was growing larger and larger, till it seemed to her that there were enough to make at least ten nightingales; but this was because she did not know how many feathers a nightingale likes to have. When there were only two pearls left, the Wise Man said to her—

"When you bring me the last pearl you must bring me the feathers too; and after that you will be able to sing with a beautiful voice and to fly wherever you like."

So when Agatha left the gloomy old castle for the last time she was not able to run through the wood, because she was carrying a big bag of feathers as well as the pearl.

She was feeling very much excited when she gave the bag of feathers to the Wise Man.

He put the last pearl carefully away with the others; and then he took the bag of feathers and emptied it over Agatha's head. As he did so he said some of the strange long words that Wise Men use.

And then——

Agatha was there no longer. There was nothing to be seen of her except a little heap of yellow curls, which the Wise Man kept to give to the next person who asked him for gold.

But out of the cave there flew a happy bird. It flew far, far up into the sky, singing with a beautiful voice. It flew higher up into the sky than any nightingale ever flew.

For the Wise Man had done more than he had promised. The bird's beautiful voice was not the voice of the nightingale, the Bird of Shadows; but the voice of the lark, the Sun-Bird, who is never sad.

THE SEA-FAIRY AND THE LAND-FAIRY, AND HOW THEY QUARRELLED

THE sea-fairy's name was Laughing Sapphire, and he lived in a nautilus-shell: the land-fairy was called Sweet-of-the-Mountain, and his home was a tuft of heather. One day Sweet-of-the-Mountain went for a stroll on the sea-shore, and there he met Laughing Sapphire, just at the edge of the ripples. It was then that the quarrel began.

"I am really sorry for you," said the sea-fairy. "It must be very unpleasant to live up on that cliff. It is so dangerous too. You might be blown down at any moment!"

"Ha-ha, how very amusing!" laughed the land-fairy. "Unpleasant, did you say? Dangerous? Not at all, not at all. Now, your life is something too horrible to think of. I am glad it is not my fate to wander for ever on the sea. And as for danger—well, every one knows that the sea is full of dangers."

"I never heard such nonsense," said Laughing Sapphire indignantly. "The sea is perfectly safe if you know how to manage your shell."

"But think of the discomfort of it," said Sweet-of-the-Mountain. "You never have any peace."

"And you never have any change," answered Laughing Sapphire.

"There's not much change in always looking at the sea—a great dull stretch of water!"

"Dull!" cried Laughing Sapphire angrily. "Dull, did you say? Not half so dull as being mewed up on a rock!"

"Why," said Sweet-of-the-Mountain, "you've no flowers, and no bees, and no——"

"And you," interrupted Laughing Sapphire, "have no glittering spray, and no forests of seaweed, and no creamy foam."

"You've no heather," said the land-fairy, as if that settled the matter.

"As for you," cried the sea-fairy, "I can't think of anything you have got! So there!"

They went on quarrelling in this way for some time, getting more and more angry. At last they agreed upon a very good way of settling the dispute. And this was their plan. Each of them was to go away for a certain length of time. On a particular day they were to meet again on the shore, at the edge of the ripples. Laughing Sapphire was to bring with him three treasures of the sea; and Sweet-of-the-Mountain was to bring three treasures of the land. The fairy whose treasures were the best would be the winner in the quarrel.

"But who will decide which are the best treasures?" asked the land-fairy.

"My friend the sea-anemone lives near here," said Laughing Sapphire. "As he is partly on land and partly in the sea, he will be able to judge fairly between us. He shall decide."

HE HELD OUT THE LITTLE SHELL IN THE BEAM OF COLOURED LIGHT

Then the sea-fairy sailed away in his nautilus-shell, and the land-fairy flew home to the heather on the cliff.

Hardly had Laughing Sapphire left the shore when he saw a huge curling wave rolling towards him. The hollow of the wave was like a great green cavern, lit up with magic light; the top of it was sparkling spray. A sunbeam was shining straight down through the spray, and gleaming with every colour you can think of, so that it seemed as if a piece of rainbow had fallen from the sky.

The fairy laughed happily, and steered right into the hollow of the wave, for he knew that his nautilus-boat was safe. In his hand was a little shell. As his boat rode smoothly over the crest of the wave and through the rainbow, he held out the little shell in the beam of coloured light. There was a wonderful change in the shell after it had passed through the rainbow; it was lined with mother-o'-pearl!

The fairy laughed again for joy when he saw the rainbow colours of the little shell.

"They've nothing like that on shore!" he said.

Then the nautilus-boat sailed on and on across the sea.

The next thing that Laughing Sapphire found was a glowing piece of red seaweed. As he pulled it, dripping, out of the sea, it looked like a bit of broad crimson ribbon; except that no ribbon ever had so much colour and so much light in it. It was so transparent that you could see the sunlight through it, and yet it was as strong as a rope.

As the fairy coiled it round and round he smiled.

"That should please them, I think," he muttered.

The third thing that Laughing Sapphire found was the best of all. To find it he was obliged to leave his nautilus-boat and dive down to the bottom of the sea. I must not tell you now of all the wonders he saw there, for it would take me too long, and it would be very difficult for me to stop. But when he came to the surface again he was clasping a splendid pearl tightly in his hand.

"If this doesn't persuade them," he said, chuckling, "that the sea is the best place in the world, nothing will!"

Meanwhile the land-fairy had been busy too.

First he flew to a beautiful garden, full of roses and verbena and everything sweet. It was a garden he often visited, for many of the flower-fairies there were friends of his. So he knew exactly where to find the sweetest lilies. There were great clumps of them—tall, white lilies with drooping heads and hearts of gold. Sweet-of-the-Mountain crept into one of them, and came out with a big, heavy drop of honey. The scent of it was so strong that all the fairies in the garden sniffed joyfully. Then Sweet-of-the-Mountain flew over the wall, and away and away till he came to a wood.

In the wood there was perfect silence. If you had walked there your footsteps would have made no sound, for the ground was soft and springy with moss. There was moss everywhere: moss on the tree-stems and on the stones, and carpets and cushions of moss on the ground. The fairy picked a piece of it—a piece like a soft green