"Even so it must be," answered the slave; "the love of a mortal works changes indeed. It is not often that we win anything so precious. Here, master, let her sit on your knee sometimes, and take care of her, for she cannot now take the same care of herself that others of her race are capable of." So Jack let little Mopsa sit on his knee; and when he was tired of admiring his slave, and wondering at the respect with which the other two fairies treated her, and at their cleverness in getting water-lilies for her, and fanning her with feathers, he curled himself up in the bottom of the boat with his own little favorite, and taught her how to play at cat's-cradle. When they had been playing some time, and Mopsa was getting quite clever at the game, the lovely slave said, "Master, it is a long time since you spoke to me." "And yet," said Jack, "there is something that I particularly want to ask you about." "Ask it then," she replied. "I don't like to have a slave," answered Jack; "and as you are so clever, don't you think you can find out how to be free again?" "I am very glad you asked me about that," said the fairy woman. "Yes, master, I wish very much to be free; and as you were so kind as to give the most valuable piece of real money you possessed in order to buy me, I can be free if you can think of anything that you really like better than that half-crown, and if I can give it you." "Oh, there are many things," said Jack. "I like going up this river to Fairyland much better." "But you are going there, master," said the fairy woman; "you were on the way before I met with you." "I like this little child better," said Jack; "I love this little Mopsa. I should like her to belong to me." "She is yours," answered the fairy woman; "she belongs to you already. Think of something else." Jack thought again, and was so long about it that at last the beautiful slave said to him, "Master, do you see those purple mountains?" Jack turned round in the boat, and saw a splendid range of purple mountains, going up and up. They were very great and steep, each had a crown of snow, and the sky was very red behind them, for the sun was going down. "At the other side of those mountains is Fairyland," said the slave; "but if you cannot think of something that you should like better to have than your half-crown, I can never enter in. The river flows straight up to yonder steep precipice, and there is a chasm in it which pierces it, and through which the river runs down beneath, among the very roots of the mountains, till it comes out at the other side. Thousands and thousands of the small people will come when they see the boat, each with a silken thread in his hand; but if there is a slave in it, not all their strength and skill can tow it through. Look at those rafts on the river; on them are the small people coming up."