"Yes, next spring she will come again," I answered, thus feeding her illusion without a moment's hesitation or a particle of remorse. Her love of royal robes, gold chariots and Queens' houses did not prevent her from listening with deep delight while I read _Jock Johnstone, the Tinkler Lad_, or sang _O'er the Hills In Legions, Boys_. She loved most of the songs I was accustomed to sing but certain of the lines vaguely distressed her. She could not endure the pathos of Nellie Gray. "Oh, my poor Nellie Gray They have taken you away And I'll never see my darling any more" put her into deepest anguish. "_Why_ did they take her away?" she sobbed. "Didn't they _ever_ see her any more?" Only after I explained that they met "down the river" and were very happy ever afterward, would she permit me to finish the ballad. She was similarly troubled by the words, "I can hear the children calling I can see their sad tears falling." "_Why_ are the children calling?" she demanded. She had a curious horror of anything abnormal. Once I took her to see "Alice in Wonderland" thinking that this would be an enchanting experience for her. Not only was it intolerably repellent to her, it was terrifying, and when the bodies of the characters suddenly lengthened, she sought refuge under the seat. All deformities, grotesqueries were to her horrible, appalling. She refused to look at the actors and at last I took her away. One afternoon as we were in the garden together she called to me. "Poppie, see the dead birdie!" On looking I saw a little dead song sparrow. "It's been here all the night and all the day, Poppie. It fell out of the tree when Eddie shooted it. Put it up in the tree again, Poppie." She seemed to think that if it were put back into its home it would go on living and singing. I don't know why this should have moved me as it did, but it blurred my eyes for a moment. My little daughter was face to face with the great mystery. O those magical days! Knowing all too well that they could not last and that to lose any part of them was to be forever cheated, I gave my time to her. Over and over again as I met her deep serene glance, I asked (as other parents have done), "Whence came you? From what dusky night rose your starry eyes? Out of what unillumined void flowered your fairy face? Can it be, as some have said, that you are only an automaton, a physical reaction?" She was the future, my father the past. Birth and death, equally inexplicable, were expressed to me in these two beings, so vital to me, so dependent upon me, and beside me, suffering, joying with me, walked the mother with unfaltering steps. I was in the midst of a novel at this time, another story of Colorado, which I called _Money Magic_, and without doubt all this distraction and travel weakened it, although Howells spoke well of it. "It is one of your best books," he said, when we next met.