marble rose up to give rest to boughs which drooped the altered hues of their
foliage like the feathers of peacocks at roost. Jewel within jewel they burned
through every shade from blue to onyx. The white blossoms of a cherry-tree had
become changed into turquoise, and the tossing spray of a fountain as it
drifted and swung was like a column of blue fire. Where a long inlet of sea
reached in and touched the feet of the hanging gardens the stars showed like
glow-worms, emerald in a floor of amethyst.

There was no motion abroad, nor sound: even the voice of the nightingale was
stilled, because the passion of his desire had become visible before his eyes.

"Once in a blue moon!" said Nilly-will, waiting for her dream to become
altogether true. "Let us go now, she said, "where I can put away my crown!
To-night has brought you to me, and the blue moon has come for us: let us go!"

"Where shall we go?" asked Hands.

"As far as we can," cried Nillywill. "Suppose to the blue moon! To-night it
seems as if one might tread on water or air. Yonder across the sea, with the
stars for stepping-stones, we might get to the blue moon as it sets into the
waves."

But as they went through the deep alleys of the garden that led down to the
shore they came to a sight more wonderful than anything they had yet seen.

Before them, facing toward the sea, stood two great reindeer, their high horns
reaching to the overhead boughs; and behind them lay a sledge, long and with
deep sides like the sides of a ship. All blue they seemed in that strange
light.