They turned into the wider path zigzagging through the woods. Yes, there she sat on the limb of a tree she had bent down and was gently swaying to and fro. Her sun-bonnet was held by the strings serving to drive troublesome insects away. Her golden hair clustered about her temples in rings and then floated off by the motion of the swinging, a lovely bewildering cloud. She did not notice them at first; then she sprang up, her face a delicate rosy tint. "Oh, Mrs. Forbes! And--Mr. Andsdell!" She looked a startled woodland nymph. He thought he had never seen a more lovely picture. "Are you having a nice time to yourself in your parlor among the hills? Can't we sit down and share it with you? I am tired. We have been rambling up hill and down dale." A great hollow tree had fallen some time and Mrs. Forbes seated herself waving her hand to Mr. Andsdell, who looked a little uncertain. "Oh, yes," Daffodil said. "I have been roaming around also. It is just the day for it. Now the sun comes out and tints everything, then it is shade and a beautiful gray green." "You were singing," he said, thinking what compliment would not be too ornate. Out here in the woods with nature and truth one could not use flattery. "Yes." She laughed softly a sound that was enchanting. "When I was little I was a devout believer in fairies. Grandfather Carrick's second wife came from Ireland when she was fifteen, and she knew the most charming stories. You know there are stories that seem true and hers did. I used to feel sure they would come and dance in the grass. That was the song little Eileen sang, and they carried her off, but they couldn't keep her because she wore a cross that had been put round her neck when she was christened." "And did you want to be carried off?" he asked. "Yes, I think I did. But I had a cross that I made of beads and named them after the saints. We are not Catholics, but Huguenots. I took my cross out in the woods with me, but the fairies never came." "There is a great deal of really beautiful faith about those things," said Mrs. Forbes. "And some of the Indian legends as well. Old Watersee has stores of them. Some one ought to collect the best of them. Fairy stories go all over the world, I think, in different guise. They are the delight of our early lives. It's sad to lose that childhood faith." "Oh, I don't want to lose it all," Daffodil said earnestly. "I just say to myself it might have been true somewhere." Then they branched off into other matters. The sky grew grayer and the wind moaned through the trees, shaking down a cloud of ripe leaves. "Is it going to rain?" asked Andsdell. "I think it will storm by to-morrow, but not now. You see, evening is coming on. We might go down;" tentatively, not sure she was the one to propose it. The path was beautiful, winding in and out, sometimes over the pile of richest moss, then stirring up the fragrance of pennyroyal. But the streets and houses began to appear.