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Now though the fairy did not know it, Mrs. Spider was very fond of music; and when she heard the sweet song, she came out to listen. The little fairy did not see her, so she sang on:–

“Grasshoppers gay, by night and day,
Keep ugly goblins far away
From the land where the fairies dwell,
From the land where the fairies dwell.”

Mrs. Spider came a little farther out, while the fairy sang:–

“There’s love, sweet love, for one and all–
For love is best for great and small–
In the land where the fairies dwell,
In the land where the fairies dwell.”

Just as the fairy finished the song she looked up, and there was Mrs. Spider, who had come out in a hurry.

“The flies are not going to help you,” said she, “so I will;” and she showed the fairy how to break the slender threads, until she was untangled and could fly away through the sunshine.

“What can I do for you, dear Mrs. Spider?” the fairy asked, as she picked up her bundle of dreams.

“Sing me a song sometimes,” replied Mrs. Spider. But the fairy did more than that; for soon after she reached fairyland, the fairy queen needed some fine lace to wear on her dress at a grand ball.

“Fly into the world,” she said, “and find me a spinner; and tell her that when she has spun the lace, she may come to the ball and sit at the queen’s table.”

As soon as the fairy heard this, she thought of the spider, and made haste to find her and tell her the queen’s message.

“Will there be music?” asked the spider.

“The sweetest ever heard” answered the fairy; and the spider began to spin.

The lace was so lovely when it was finished, that the fairy queen made the spider court spinner; and then the spider heard the fairies sing every day, and she too had love in her heart.

PART IV.

A mocking bird sang in Grandmother’s garden. He was king of the garden, and the rose was queen. Every night when the garden was still, he serenaded Grandmother; and she would lie awake and listen to him, for she said he told her all the glad tidings of the day, and helped her understand the flower folk and bird folk and insect folk that lived in her garden.

Lindsay always thought the mocking bird told Grandmother the wonderful stories she knew, and he wanted to hear them, too, late in the night time; but he never could keep awake. So he had to be contented with the mocking bird in the morning, when he was so saucy.

There were orioles and thrushes and bluebirds, big chattering jays, sleek brown sparrows, and red-capped woodpeckers; but not a bird in the garden was so gay and sweet and loving as the mocking bird, who could sing everybody’s song and his own song, too.

Night after night he sang his own song in Grandmother’s garden. But there came a night when he did not sing; and though Grandmother and Lindsay listened all next day, and looked in every tree for him, he could not be found.

“I’m afraid somebody has caught him and shut him up in a cage” said Grandmother; and when Lindsay heard this he was very miserable; for he knew that somewhere in the garden, there was a nest and a mother bird waiting.

He and Grandmother talked until bed-time about it, and early next morning Lindsay asked Grandmother to let him go to look for the bird.

“Please do, Grandmother,” he begged. “If somebody has him in a cage I shall be sure to find him; and I will take my own silver quarter to buy him back.”

So after breakfast Grandmother kissed him and let him go, and he ran down the path and out of the garden gate, and asked at every house on the street:–