"Oh, nothing," said he; "I only dreamed that a fly lighted on my
forehead," and he was soon breathing heavily again.

The nightingale, who was not used to sleeping at night, anyway, was
wide awake by this time, but when she saw Pease-Blossom she did not
know him, so black was he.

"Do you not remember the fairy dell and the little fay to whom you
gave a feather for his cap?" said Pease-Blossom then; and when the
nightingale heard that, she was so overjoyed that she could scarcely
keep from bursting into song.

To open the cage door was only a minute's work and the nightingale was
soon as free as air. Pease-Blossom seated himself upon her back and
she was just ready to fly through an open window near by when the
giant waked up in real earnest and saw the open cage.

"Thieves! Robbers!" he called in such a terrible voice that the
chimney-swift shook in her nest, and the big fish in the Silver Sea
jumped out of the water.

If the Giant had spied Pease-Blossom and the nightingale it would have
gone hard with them; but luckily for them his wife, who was a
kind-hearted woman, saw them before he did, and upset the golden cage
right in his way.

[Illustration: STRAIGHT TO THE ENCHANTED WOOD THEY WENT.]

"The whole place is bewitched," thundered he, stumbling over the
cage; and in the stir which followed the nightingale slipped away
unseen.

Over the Silver Sea where the fish swam, over the hedge of thorns
which guarded the palace of the lovely princess, over the fields and
the fells where the dew sparkled, straight to the Enchanted Wood they
went.

"Who comes here?" called the fairy warder of the dell.

"Pease-Blossom and the nightingale," answered the fay; and great was
the joy in fairyland at their return.

"How long you have been!" said Quick-As-Lightning.

"How fast you have come!" said little Twinkle-Toes.

But as for Spice-of-Life he could not speak at all for laughing at
sooty Pease-Blossom.

Then Pease-Blossom made haste to bathe himself in the brook, and put
on his finest court suit of pink satin rose-petals trimmed with lace
from a spider's web; for the fairy queen had ordered a grand court
ball in his honor, and there was no time to lose.

A cricket band played merrily, the nightingale sang from a thicket
close at hand, and tripping and twirling the little folks went till
the cock crowed and the sun came up; and it was fairy bedtime.

In light of sun and light of moon
How different all t