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The Story of the Opal.

“Come back, come back! The Stone will shelter you. Come back at once before the rain falls.”

They had wandered out into an open field, but when she heard the Nightingale, the Moonbeam turned her head and said,—

“Surely that is the Nightingale singing. See! he is calling us.”

“Follow me,” sang the bird. “ Back at once to shelter in the Stone.” But the Moonbeam tottered and fell.

“Tam grown so weak and pale,” she said, “I can no longer move.”

Then the Nightingale flew to earth. “Climb upon my back,” he said, “and I will take you both back to the Stone.” So they both sat upon his back, and he flew with them to the large Stone beneath the tree.

“Go in,” he said, stopping in front of the hole; and both passed into the hole, and nestled in the darkness within the Stone.

Then the rain began. All day long it rained, and the Nightingale sat in his nest half asleep. But when the Moon rose, after the Sun had set, the clouds cleared away, and the air was again full of tiny silver ladders, down which the Moon-

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