"Oh, but it doesn't disappear really," said Chubby, who wanted to show that she knew a little geography; "the sun is shining somewhere else at this very moment, only we can't see it."

"Rubbish!" said the wymp, scornfully. "Don't you believe everything you're told about the sun! Who said it didn't disappear, eh? Has any one ever gone after it to see?"

"N-no," said Chubby, doubtfully, "but--"

"That proves it doesn't go on shining, then," said the wymp, triumphantly. "There's plenty of inquisitive people who'd have gone after the sun long ago, if it hadn't the sense to disappear every night.

It must have some peace, you know, if it's got to come up smiling again the next morning."

"Do the wymps disappear every night, too?" asked Jerry.

"Of course they do," answered the wymp. "Don't you?"

"I didn't know we did," said Jerry, a little bewildered. "I thought we only went to sleep."

"Ah, you do that first," said the wymp. "Then you disappear."

"No, we don't," said Chubby, positively. "We shouldn't have dreams if we disappeared."

"You certainly wouldn't have any dreams unless you did disappear,"

chuckled the wymp.

"Then what about to-night?" demanded Jerry. "Do you mean to say we have disappeared now?"

The wymp sighed. "Some people never will know when they're not there,"

he complained. "But here is our comet; jump in, or else we shall be late."

Down swooped the great shining comet, and there it lay across the road, waiting for them to mount. The children climbed on to its broad glittering tail and held tightly to each other, while the wymp mounted in front of them and stood like the man at the wheel, with his hand on the comet's head; then up they flew at a terrific pace, right through the wonderful blue darkness that stretched all round them. Far above was the great land of light that lay round the moon; but the country of the stars came in between, and the stars were still so far off that they had not even begun to look like real stars.

"Afraid of the dark?" asked the wymp over his shoulder.

"Oh, no," said Chubby. "I am only afraid of the dark you get at home when the candle is put out. This is a nice, friendly kind of darkness, and candles wouldn't make any difference to it."

"I don't know so much about that," said the wymp; "if you had the steering to do, you wouldn't mind a candle or two to help you."

"Do you steer by the points of the compa.s.s?" asked Jerry, eagerly. Some one had given him a compa.s.s on his last birthday, and he had steered by it ever since. Indeed, he had arrived late at school several times, through steering his way by the points of the compa.s.s.

"Certainly not," said the wymp; "when you are sailing on a comet, you steer by the points of the comet, of course." Just then, he gave a sharp turn to the points of the comet, and it sailed right out of the blue darkness and took them into the dim mysterious greyness of the country of the stars.

"They _are_ like real stars," murmured Chubby, for she had begun to have serious doubts whether the stars she had painted on the kite were not wrong after all. It was very comforting to find that the stars that were whizzing past them in hundreds and thousands looked just like the stars she had been accustomed to see on Christmas trees, and had such sharp points that it would not have been at all pleasant to run against one of them by mistake. Indeed, the wymp had as much as he could do to steer through the country of the stars without coming into collision with them, although the comet did not make half so much commotion in the sky as Jerry's kite had done. But then, Jerry's kite had never been trained to be a comet, and that made all the difference.

It grew lighter and lighter as they came nearer the moon, and even the stars began to look pale in the white light that was shining so close to the edge of their country. The stars were growing fewer, too, for stars naturally prefer to shine in a place where they can be seen, and just here, at the edge of their country, they could hardly be seen at all.

Then the wymp gave another turn to the points of the comet, and it glided gently from the country of the stars into the pale white country of the moon.

"It's like being inside a great flame that isn't hot," whispered Chubby.

Even the wymp had to admit that the country of the moon had something in its favour. "For those who like light," he allowed, "the moon is all very well. For my part, I prefer Wympland, where there isn't any light at all. You can't say that of any other country on either side of the sun!"

"I don't want to say it," objected Chubby; "I am very glad there _is_ some light in my country."

"But there isn't," retorted the wymp. "There's only other people's light in your country! Where would you be, if you didn't borrow bits of light from the countries of the sky, eh?"

Chubby thought it would be wiser to change the conversation. "If you please," she said politely, "can you tell me when we shall get to the moon?"

"Why," laughed the wymp, "we are in the moon now!"

Chubby looked round her in bewilderment. "But where are the eyes and the nose and the mouth?" she asked.

The wymp shook his head. "I am afraid," he said gravely, "that you must have found them in the soup plate. Perhaps Jerry knows where they are."

But Jerry was looking everywhere for something that was far more important. Some people might want to come all this way to look for the man in the moon, but for his part he intended to find the biggest kite in the village, the kite that had taken him six half-holidays to make.

"Do you think we shall find it soon?" he asked impatiently.

n.o.body answered him, for just then the comet came to such a sudden standstill that all three of them were nearly jerked off into the air.

It was not the comet's fault, however, for right in its way was Jerry's kite; and it was lucky for everybody, that night, that there was not an extremely bad accident in the countries of the sky.

"Why don't you look where you are going?" asked the kite, in just the flippant fly away sort of tone one would expect from a kite.

Jerry was so astonished at being addressed in this impudent manner by a thing he had made with his own hands, that he did not know what to reply. The comet, however, was a comet of a few words; and all it did was to put its head down and rush straight at Jerry's kite. There is no doubt that in another minute there would have been a terrific battle in the middle of the moon, if a strange, clear voice from beyond had not spoken just in time to stop it.

"Who is daring to make all this commotion in my country?" said the voice.

"Hullo!" muttered the wymp, suddenly; "I was expecting that. Good-bye, children; I'm off!" And pointing his hands downward, he took a dive from the head of the comet and disappeared in the direction of the country of the stars.

At the same instant, out from the pale white distance of the country of the moon glided a tall figure, as white and delicate and shimmering as the light that surrounded it.

"Is it--can it be the man in the moon?" whispered Chubby to the boy beside her.

Then the figure came closer, and they saw that it was a wonderful, mysterious-looking, white witch-woman.

"I am the Lady of the Moon," she said, in the same clear, cold voice.

"Snow and stillness and s.p.a.ce are wherever I go; when I smile, I make the whole world beautiful, but my smile takes the colour away from the flowers and the ripple away from the water and the warmth away from the sunshine."

She looked round, and her eye lighted on Jerry's kite. "What is that creature doing in my country?" she demanded.

All the impudence seemed to have gone out of the biggest kite in the village, for it lay there trembling at the feet of the Lady of the Moon, and had not so much as a word to say for itself. Jerry, however, summoned up courage to answer for it. After all, it was through him that the kite was there, and he naturally felt bound to defend it.

"If you please," he said, "it is my kite. I made it, all by myself,--it took six half-holidays; and Chubby painted the moon and the stars on it."

"I am afraid," said Chubby, hurriedly, "that the moon is not very much like the moon, but it was the best I could do with three paints and a brush that hadn't any hairs. The stars are right," she added anxiously.

The Lady of the Moon smiled contemptuously. "Stars, indeed!" she observed. "What does it matter how the stars are painted? The moon is far more important, and you have made a regular muddle of that! And who told you children that you might come into my country, I should like to know?"

"The wymp brought us," explained Jerry. "He was here a minute ago, but he has just left."

"No doubt he has," said the Lady of the Moon, with a little laugh that made them shiver. "Wymps know better than to come in my way. I can turn their laughter into h.o.a.r-frost, and they don't like that. As for you, unless you want to be frozen tight to the middle of the moon for the rest of your lives, you had better make haste home again."

Chubby was only too anxious to be off, for she had no wish to spend the rest of her life with some one who made people shiver whenever she laughed. Jerry, however, did not mean to have his journey to the moon for nothing.

"Please, may I take my kite back with me?" he asked boldly. "I want to show the other boys and girls that it did fly to the moon after all."