Then Aster threw himself down on the soft moss at Eva’s feet. But when she asked him where he had learned the words of his song, he could not tell her. Just then a cloud came over the face of the moon, hiding her from their sight; and as the darkness came over everything, only leaving for a moment the pale earth-light, it seemed to Eva that there were faces looking at her, peeping from behind every tree; and then a light breeze sprang up, just moving the flowers, and from the bell of one of them seemed to come these words, all in verse, for in Fairy-Land and in Shadow-Land people seldom speak in plain prose as we do: O’er this spot do THEY have power, Not here groweth Aster’s flower. Wander, Eva, wander on Till thy hand the prize hath won. Then the breeze died away, and the voice was silent; and Eva saw that Aster was asleep, and, frightened at the faces which made grimaces and mocked at her, more angrily, she thought, on account of the warning the flower had sung, she touched him to awaken him; and as she did so the cloud passed from the face of the moon, and as once more her pure, clear light returned, the ugly, threatening faces vanished, and Aster awoke. But when Eva tried to tell him of what she had seen and heard during his short sleep, she could only say these words: Moss shall harden into stone, Faces mock you o’er the sand; Leading Aster by the hand, From this spot ye must be gone. Then Aster laughed, because Eva declared that these were not the words which the flower had spoken; yet every time that she tried to recollect and repeat them, she could only say the same thing over. Then she began to try and tell him about the faces, and when she began to speak of them, suddenly the full moon sank from the sky, and all was dark; and then a strange drowsiness came over the children, and Eva and Aster, nestled in each other’s arms, lay down to sleep upon the soft, green moss, knowing that with the next moonrise they must go forth in search of Aster’s lost flower. [Illustration] [Illustration] Chapter VI. _THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH._