“Still following, and in a pretty pucker about his property. But, my son, be silent; and do not interrupt me. The elf, still flying with the heart, is now in the open country. A peaceful, quiet spot. Beautiful meadows, starred with daisies. Ha! they remind me of a scene of early youth. That green velvet quilt sprinkled with little silver flowers—the quilt of the sweet Princess of Satinskin—that sweet, beautiful quilt in the palace of”— “Never mind the palace,” said the young flea. “You are now in the open country; keep to the meadow.” And the elder flea, rebuked, proceeded. “There’s cattle and sheep in the meadows; and the boy, in sport, flies and flutters above them. And now he jumps from lamb’s back to lamb’s back, and the man still following, with all his eyes watching his heart, that the little elf, in the wildest fun, tosses up, like a ball in the air, catching it again, and again tossing it up, and”— “I should guess something odd,” said the young flea: “for how the fellow here kicks; and how his face is broken into moving hills and vallies. How he moans, too, about his heart. Poor devil!” “And now, the little imp trips across a bridge, that leads to a large wooden building—still in the open country. He runs into the building, the fellow following him, as though now he was sure of getting his heart back again. Not a bit. The youngster throws the heart to a strange-looking woman; a sort of Egyptian fortune-teller,—and she, with a sharp glittering knife, begins to cut the heart into little pieces.” “Oh, ho! Look at his face,” cried the young flea. “And if he doesn’t shift and twist like a worm on a hook!” “The woman cuts the heart into small pieces, and the owner of the heart—how his knees twitch up and down, and how his head rolls upon the pillow, at every touch of the knife—at length sits down in a sort of curious despair to see what will become of his heart. And now, he looks about him—yes, he knows he is in a paper-mill. And strangely enough appears to him a kind of living history of the rise and progress of paper. He sees the flags of Egypt growing in a ditchy nook—and red Egyptians pulling and peeling it. And here flourishes a field of bamboo, and here a Chinaman, with his side-long almond eyes, cuts and shreds the skin from the bark. And the dreamer seeing his heart in bits tossed into a trough, is suddenly smitten with the sense that his heart, the great machine and blood-pump of his life, is to be made into paper. He tries to protest against the injury. He tries to roar out, but not a word will come. He sits straining and gasping, and dumb withal, as a caught fish. And now, he sees the bits of his heart curiously sorted by these hags of women; gloomy and wild as sybils,—for, my son, I know what sort of folk sybils are from the wisdom of my ancestors; our great forefathers having been closely entertained by them.” “Go on, father: I’m impatient to know what they make of the heart,” cried the younger flea.