“What did you think of wearing?” asked the Giant. “Let me see,” said Peggy. “Yes—I think I wish to go as a Fairy, in pink. What would you like to be?”
“The wishes do work well now!” said the Giant in a gratified voice, for Peggy stood before him glittering in a rosy spangled frock and gleaming silver wings, with a star on her forehead and a wand in her hand all complete. “Well, if you’ll really be so kind as to use up another wish on me, I think I’d rather like to go as Little Boy Blue.”
“Certainly!” said Peggy, and the next instant the Giant, a good deal smaller than usual, and dressed all in blue, with a golden horn in his hand, stood on the plain. Unfortunately, however, his seven-leagued boots still remained their usual size, and his beard was as long and curly as ever, which gave him rather a strange appearance.
“Not quite so successful,” he remarked, glancing down at himself. “However, I shall pass in a crowd, I daresay. And now we must start. The Pixies will go under the hills, which takes a quarter of the time, but I daren’t take you[50] that way for fear of spoiling our clothes. Come along—fly on to my shoulder. That’s right! Shut your eyes and it won’t seem so far.” And off he walked at a great pace over the hills.
 
Peggy didn’t mean to do another picture of the fifth Adventure, but Mother particularly wanted one of the Pixies, so she had to do this, as the Ball-room one was too difficult to do. The Pixies are just shouting out, “This is Mazing, this is!” and Peggy is trying to catch two of them. You can see how tired and giddy the Giant must have got with wandering about amongst so many Snowmen. He is just wiping his face with his red handkerchief. Peggy made herself so very ugly by mistake, and didn’t know how to change it.
 
“Do try to remember as we go what ‘Mazing’ means,” said Peggy. “I wish I knew. It’s such a funny word!”
“I can’t talk or think of anything at present,” said the Giant. “I’ve got to try and find my way, and it’s no easy matter, I can assure you.” And a long silence ensued.
“Aren’t we there yet?” asked Peggy at last, after they had been travelling for over a quarter of an hour. She opened her eyes as she spoke, and then nearly fell off the Giant’s shoulder with astonishment.
For the brown hills had quite disappeared, and in their place a dazzling white country spread around. And a country filled with—could it be? Peggy rubbed her eyes, and stared again. Yes. Filled with snowmen! Snowmen towering up in all directions, one behind the other, hundreds and hundreds of them, and all exactly like the one Mother and Peggy had made in the garden last winter, with coals for eyes, and pipes in their mouths!
“Yes, I thought you’d be surprised!” said the Giant, stopping wearily. “I was. We’ve missed our way somehow, I believe, and it would really have been better if we had gone under the hills after all. This white country gets on my nerves. I must have a rest!”
He propped himself up against one of the snowmen as he spoke, and mopped his face with his red pocket-handkerchief. “Do fly up fairly high and see if there’s any way out of this,” he implored in an exhausted voice. “I’ve been walking in and out between the wretched things for ages. There seems no end to them!”
Peggy fluttered up and looked North, South, East and[51] West, but alas, there was nothing but hosts and hosts of snowmen in all directions.
“I believe it’s a trick of those nasty Pixies!” said the Giant angrily when she returned. “There—look! Wasn’t that one of them?” and he pointed behind her.
Peggy wheeled round, just in time to see a mischievous Pixie face peeping from behind a snowman.
“Catch him!” cried the Giant, making a grab and missing. “Oh, now he’s over there!” as another face peeped at them from quite another direction.
“This is Mazing, this is,” said a tiny, chuckling voice, and a third Pixie appeared round another snowman, and disappeared again just as Peggy thought she had really got him.
“Oh dear!” said the Giant, stopping in dismay. “Don’t you remember you said you wished you knew what Mazing was? I never took in that it was a wish till this moment!”
“Why, so I did!” said Peggy. “Gracious me, what a silly game! and that makes four wishes gone, too. There, now I’ve got him!” and she made a wild dash to the right, but only succeede............