“Oh, I should think it would be a pleasure!” cried Beth rapturously. “It makes you feel as if you would write poetry to be in this warm, soft, flowery place with all those birds hopping and singing, doesn’t it? I feel as if poetry would just burst right out--only it doesn’t! Do you call the man who grows flowers in a greenhouse a gardener? I was wondering what you would call him.” “The man who has charge of this conservatory is the gardener transferred from Mr. Cortlandt’s country house, otherwise we might call him the florist,” said Mrs. Hodgman. “Now, my dear, I must leave you, for Mrs. Cortlandt gives a small dinner to-night, and I have much to look after this morning.” “Do you think I may stay here a while, all alone with the birds, and would you mind not telling any one I was here? Because I should like very much to play something. It would be that I was a kind of enchantress who could turn a bare day like this into a summer day on a magic island, and all these birds and flowers would be under the spell, obey me, you see, and I’d play they all knew me and were bright and beautiful--as they truly are--but nobody could see them, or get on the island unless I touched them with my wand, and I never touched any one unless they had done something lovely and kind to earn the touch,” explained Beth, feeling that she owed Mrs. Hodgman the explanation if she asked to be left alone by her. “I could play it better if I knew no one knew where I was; it makes it more like a secret, invisible island.” “Bless you, little Beth, you may stay here as long as you like, and play all the pretty fancies you can fashion,” said Mrs. Hodgman heartily, kissing the round, soft cheek turned up to her. Then she hurried away, leaving Beth to a glorious kingdom of fact and fancy. This was why no one could tell Beth’s Aunt Alida where the little girl was when she wanted her an hour later, for Mrs. Hodgman had gone out and nobody else had seen her. The household had begun to get excited when Mrs. Cortlandt remembered that nobody had looked in the conservatory for Beth, and she hurried down herself to try this last hope of finding the child in the house. As she opened the door Beth’s happy face met her eyes, flushed with the warmth of the conservatory and her interest in her fascinating game. She looked so rapt that Mrs. Cortlandt forgot that she had been anxious about her and cried out: “Why, you funny little Bethie! What are you doing here by your serene self, and why do you look as if you were floating on little pink clouds, child?” “I’ve been having such a lovely time, Aunt Alida!” said Beth, coming down to facts by an effort. “I’ve been playing this was a magic island. It’s wonderful to play things right in the middle of things more fairy than your play is! To have all these birds and flowers true when it’s so cold and snowy! Aunt Alida, your real fairy-land is nicer than book fairy-land!”