After this Jack told the hound to watch his boat, and went himself in search of the apple-woman. Not one fairy was to be seen, any more than if he had been in his own country, and he wandered down the green margin of the river till he saw the apple-woman sitting at a small stall with apples on it, and cherries tied to sticks, and some dry-looking nuts. She had Mopsa on her knee, and had washed her face, and put a beautiful clean white frock on her. "Where are all the fairies gone to?" asked Jack. "I never take any notice of that common trash and their doings," she answered. "When the Queen takes to telling her stories they are generally frightened, and go and sit in the tops of the trees." "But you seem very fond of Mopsa," said Jack, "and she is one of them. You will help me to take care of her, won't you, tills she grows a little older?" "Grows!" said the apple-woman, laughing. "Grows! Why you don't think, surely, that she will ever be any different from what she is now?" "I thought she would grow up," said Jack. "They never change so long as they last," answered the apple-woman, "when once they are one-foot-one high." "Mopsa," said Jack, "come here, and I'll measure you." Mopsa came dancing towards Jack, and he tried to measure her, first with a yard measure that the apple-woman took out of her pocket, and then with a stick, and then with a bit of string; but Mopsa would not stand steady, and at last it ended in their having a good game of romps together, and a race; but when he carried her back, sitting on his shoulder, he was sorry to see that the apple-woman was crying again, and he asked her kindly what she did it for. "It is because," she answered, "I shall never see my own country any more, nor any men and women and children, excepting such as by a rare chance stray in for a little while as you have done." "I can go back whenever I please," said Jack. "Why don't you?" "Because I came in of my own good-will, after I had had fair warning that if I came at all it would end in my staying always. Besides, I don't know that I exactly wish to go home again: I should be afraid." "Afraid of what?" asked Jack. "Why, there's the rain and the cold, and not having anything to eat excepting what you earn. And yet," said the apple-woman, "I have three boys of my own at home; one of them must be nearly a man by this time, and the youngest is about as old as you are. If I went home I might find one or more of those boys in jail, and then how miserable I should be." "But you are not happy as it is," said Jack. "I have seen you cry."