They perched among the opening blossoms. Overhead flashed by the Sweep, the Dustman, and the Laugher, bound for distant ports, perhaps as far as England. The Head Gardener lumbered heavily after them to find his flowers and trees. Starlight, they grasped, could be no separate thing. The rays started, indeed, from separate points, but all met later in the sky to weave this enormous fairy network in which the currents and cross-currents and criss-cross-currents were so utterly bewildering. Alone, the children certainly must have got lost in the first five minutes. Their cousin gathered up the threads from Monkey's hair and Jimbo's eyes, and held them in one hand like reins. He sang to them a moment while they recovered their breath and forces:-- The stars in their courses Are runaway horses That gallop with Thoughts from the Earth; They collect them, and race Back through wireless space, Bringing word of the tiniest birth; Past old Saturn and Mars, And the hosts of big stars, Who strain at their leashes for joy. Kind thoughts, like fine weather, Bind sweetly together God's suns--with the heart of a boy. So, beware what you think; It is written in ink That is golden, and read by His Stars! 'Hadn't we better get on?' cried Monkey, pulling impatiently at the reins he held. 'Yes,' echoed Jimbo. 'Look at the sky. The "rapide" from Paris comes past at six o'clock.' CHAPTER XVI Aus den Himmelsaugen droben Fallen zitternd goldne Funken Durch die Nacht, und meine Seele Dehnt sich liebeweit und weiter. O ihr Himmelsaugen droben, Weint euch aus in meine Seele, Dass von lichten Sternentranen Uberfliesset meine Seele! Heine. They rose, fluttered a moment above the lilac bushes, and then shot forward like the curve of a rainbow into the sleeping house. The next second they stood beside the bed of the Widow Jequier. She lay there, so like a bundle of untidy sticks that, but for the sadness upon the weary face, they could have burst out laughing. The perfume of the wistaria outside the open window came in sweetly, yet could not lighten the air of heavy gloom that clothed her like a garment. Her atmosphere was dull, all streaked with greys and black, for her mind, steeped in anxiety even while she slept, gave forth cloudy vapours of depression and disquietude that made impossible the approach of--light. Starlight, certainly, could not force an entrance, and even sunlight would spill half its radiance before it reached her heart. The help she needed she thus deliberately shut out. Before going to bed her mood had been one of anxious care and searching worry. It continued, of course, in sleep.