far away towards the west.

"He lives there," she said, as if speaking to herself. "He will play
there again, in his father's garden."

Then she brought her eyes down slowly from the rose-flush in the
cloud, and looked at him and said, "Jack."

"Yes," said Jack; "I am here. What is it that you wish to say?"

She answered, "I am come to give you back your kiss."

So she stooped forward as she stood on the step, and kissed him, and
her tears fell on his cheek.

"Farewell!" she said, and she turned and went up the steps and into
the great hall; and while Jack gazed at her as she entered, and would
fain have followed, but could not stir, the great doors closed
together again, and he was left outside.

Then he knew, without having been told, that he should never enter
them any more. He stood gazing at the castle; but it was still,--no
more fairy music sounded.

How beautiful it looked in the evening sunshine, and how Jack cried!

[Illustration: THE QUEEN'S FAREWELL.

"She stooped forward as she stood on the step, and kissed him."--PAGE
234.]

Suddenly he perceived that reeds were growing up between him and the
great doors: the grass, which had all day grown about the steps, was
getting taller; it had long spear-like leaves, it pushed up long pipes
of green stem, and they whistled.

They were up to his ankles, they were presently up to his waist; soon
they were as high as his head. He drew back that he might see over
them; they sprang up faster as he retired, and again he went back. It
seemed to him that the castle also receded; there was a long reach of
these great reeds between it and him, and now they were growing behind
also, and on all sides of him. He kept moving back and back: it was of
no use, they sprang up and grew yet more tall, till very shortly the
last glimpse of the fairy castle was hidden from his sorrowful eyes.

The sun was just touching the tops of the purple mountains when Jack
lost sight of Mopsa's home; but he remembered how he had penetrated
the bed of reeds in the morning, and he hoped to have the same good
fortune again. So on and on he walked, pressing his way among them as
well as he could, till the sun went down behind the mountains, and
the rosy sky turned gold color, and the gold began to burn itself
away, and then all on a sudden he came to the edge of the reed-bed,
and walked out upon a rising ground.

Jack ran up it, looking for the castle. He could not see it, so he
climbed