“Well, some scout the White Spirit; they say you are a childless widow, and that your name is Mrs. Lynn.” “They do know quite a great deal about me, it seems. Well, my dear child, as to this last rumor, it is not for _you_ to set them right by making any explanations. You could not even do it properly, because you do not know the circumstances. Let people continue to speak of me as widow, and to call me Mrs. Lynn! They will not be so far wrong. Lynn is only an abbreviation of my rightful name—however they came by such a fractional part of the truth! So, my dear, let me still be Mrs. Lynn to those who like to call me so. And mark me—to no one except your father, your mother, and old Monica, must you reveal the secret that the Lady of Edengarden is no other than the poor Emolyn Wyndeworth. They will respect my wishes and keep my secret. The world thinks that I am dead, and it thinks truly, for I am dead to the world. I come out of my grave only for the sake of the few who love me.” “You dream beautiful dreams in your grave, dear lady! you who dreamed this Edengarden into existence!” murmured Em. “Do you love this beauty so much, fair child? Then perhaps you will come and share it with me. You are my little namesake. I shall beg you of your mother some of these days. She has so many daughters she might spare you to me!” “Oh, she would! she would! My dear mother would give you anything in her possession that you might ask of her! And as for me—oh, how I should love to live with you!” exclaimed Em. with a burst of enthusiasm. “What! and leave your _own_ mother?” wistfully inquired the lady, as if to test the girl. “Oh, my dear mother has father and so many other boys and girls, as you said, she can spare me; and _you have no one to love you_,” answered Em. in a voice of ineffable tenderness and pathos. The lady stooped and kissed her for all reply. “Oh, how hard it is to get away! How I dislike to go. Yet I must. I have overstayed my time. Dear lady, good-evening,” said Em. as she arose and lifted the lady’s hand to her lips. “Stay! Who is going to take you home?” “Old ’Sias, the gatekeeper, madam.” “He of the ‘hundred and fifty years, more or less?’ Where is he?” “Waiting below, madam, in his boat—_The White Dove_.” “Then come, my dear, and I will walk with you as far as the Silver Circle, for so we call the grove of maple trees that surrounds the shores of the island—though it is a golden circle now, for the leaves have put on their autumn livery,” said Mrs. Lynn, as she lifted a light shawl of shining silky white gauze from a table near, threw it over her head and shoulders and led the way from the house. “That is a beautiful girdle of maples around the island—silvery in the summer and golden in the autumn,” said Em. as she walked beside her conductress down the marble steps that led from terrace to terrace from the summit to the plain.