'You thought I should look as old as your Great-Grannie, didn't you?' laughed the happy little creature. 'The Small People show their age by looking younger and fairer--at least, the royal fairies do.'
She got on her feet as she spoke, and gazed over the great moor, and as she gazed, her face, which had the delicate pink of a cowry-shell, grew more beautiful, and a tender, happy light crept into her speedwell-blue eyes.
'There is a friend of yours crossing the moor,' she said in her sweet voice, which was more than ever like the note of a bird, only sweeter and clearer.
'Why, 'tis Farmer Vivian!' cried the child. 'However did he get here? I do hope he won't want to have you,' glancing at her lovely little friend anxiously. 'I don't know what I shall do to hide 'ee if he should. I couldn't put beautiful little you in my underskirt pocket or into the bosom of my frock.'
'Why not?' asked the dainty little creature, smiling. 'I lay there close to your heart all this night, and a warmer, truer little heart I shall never rest against. But you need not fear Farmer Vivian on my account. He, of all persons, would not hurt any of the Good Small People for a king's crown, much less me.'
'He is getting smaller!' exclaimed Gerna. 'Why, he is a teeny, tiny Farmer Vivian now! Ah, dear! how queer everything is! Everything is queer an' funny since I picked up that purse with the rings 'pon it an' dear little you inside.'
'Cannot you guess who he is?' asked the little fairy, her lovely wee face more tender than the June sky over them.
'No,' returned the wondering child. 'Who is he?'
'My own little True Love!' answered the fairy, her eyes a blue light. 'We are meeting each other after a century of black years. He was my True Love all the time in the form of big Farmer Vivian! For love of poor little me he kept in the neighbourhood of Piskey Goog all that time.'
It was all so surprising that Gerna told herself she would never be surprised any more whatever happened. And when the two Wee Lovers, separated by cruel Fate for one hundred years, met and greeted each other in lover fashion, all over the great moor broke the sound of pealing bells, so tiny and so silvery and with such music in their tones the like of which Gerna had never in all her life heard before. And where the bells were rung from she never knew, for there were no steeples or towers anywhere that she could see. As the bells' music rang on, and all the little moorland birds sang more entrancingly than before, she saw hundreds and hundreds of the Small People, all more or less beautiful, come out from behind clumps of Bog-myrtle, and banks of thyme, and beds of sweet-scented orchis, [11] all laughing and singing as they came towards the Tolmên, where the dear Little Lady and her True Love were standing hand in hand, smiling and bowing and looking as happy as ever they could look.