before they were clear of the avenues of the garden, one of the reindeer
tossed up his great branching horns and snorted aloud for joy. With a soft
stir in the thick boughs overhead, a bird with a great trail of feathers moved
upon its perch.

The sledge, gliding from land, passed out over the smoothed waters, running
swiftly as upon ice; and the reflection of the stars shone up like glow-worms
as Nillywill and Hands-pansy, in the moon-fay's company, sped away along its
bright surface.

The still air whistled through the reindeers' horns; so fast they went that
the trees and the hanging gardens and the palace walls melted away from view
like wreaths of smoke. Sky and sea became one magic sapphire drawing them in
towards the centre of its life, to the heart of the blue moon itself.

When the blue moon had set below the sea, then far behind upon the land they
had left the leaves rustled and drew themselves sharply together, shuddering
to get rid of the stony stillness, and the magic hues in which they had been
dyed; and again the nightingale broke out into passionate triumph and
complaint.

Then also from the bough which the reindeer had brushed with its horns a
peacock threw back its head and cried in harsh lamentation, having no sweet
voice wherewith to acclaim its prize. And so ever since it cries, as it goes
up into the boughs to roost, because it shares with the nightingale its grief
for the memory of departed beauty which never returns to earth save once in a
blue moon.

But Nillywill and Hands-pansy, living together in the blue moon, look back
upon the world, if now and then they choose to remember, without any longing