LOW'S BACK]

'Twit! twit,' cried a voice just above her; and the swallow fluttered
to the ground beside her. 'You look sad; are you _really_ going to let
that ugly mole marry you?'

'I shall soon die, that is one comfort,' she answered weeping. But the
swallow only said:

'Tut! tut! get on my back, as I told you before, and I will take you
to a land where the sun always shines, and you will soon forget that
such a creature as a mole ever existed.'

'Yes, I will come,' said Maia.

Then the swallow tore off one of the corn stalks with his strong beak,
and bade her tie it safely to his wing. And they started off, flying,
flying south for many a day.

Oh! how happy Maia was to see the beautiful earth again! A hundred
times she longed for the swallow to stop, but he always told her that
the best was yet to be; and they flew on and on, only halting for
short rests, till they reached a place covered with tall white marble
pillars, some standing high, wreathed in vines, out of which endless
swallows' heads were peeping; others lying stretched among the
flowers, white, yellow, and blue.

'I live up there,' said the swallow, pointing to the tallest of the
pillars. 'But such a house would never do for you, as you would only
fall out of it and kill yourself. So choose one of those flowers
below, and you shall have it for your own, and sleep all night curled
up in its leaves.'

'I will have that one,' answered Maia, pointing to a white flower
shaped like a star, with a tiny crinkled wreath of red and yellow in
its centre, and a long stem that swayed in the wind; 'that one is the
prettiest of all, and it smells so sweet.' Then the swallow flew down
towards it; but as they drew near they saw a tiny little manikin with
a crown on his head, and wings on his shoulders, balancing himself on
one of the leaves. 'Ah, that is the king of the flower-spirits,'
whispered the swallow. And the king stretched out his hands to Maia,
and helped her to jump from the swallow's back.

'I have waited for you for a long while,' said he, 'and now you have
come at last to be my queen.'

And Maia smiled, and stood beside him as all the fairies that dwelt in
the flowers ran to fetch presents for her; and the best of them all
was a pair of lovely gauzy blue wings to help fly about like one of
themselves.

So instead of marrying the mole, Little Maia was crowned a queen, and
the fairies danced round her in a ring, while the swallow sang the
wedd