Everychild realized immediately that this was true; for at that very moment the owl in the dark tree outside the broken window hooted--and the sound was not at all what it had been only a little while ago. "It's fine to hear the owl make a noise like that, isn't it?" he asked of the giant. "Is it?" replied Will o'Dreams with a kindly taunt in his voice. "Suppose you tell me why." "I'm not sure I can. But you know it makes you think of so many wonderful and strange things." "Of what?" persisted the giant. Everychild pondered a little, and then it seemed that he saw a sort of vision. "It makes you think of dark forests," he said, "--the very middle of them. And it makes you think of old ruined castles, with nothing living about them any more but the ivy climbing up on the broken walls." The giant's eyes were shining in the gloom. "And what else?" he asked softly. "And then you think of the castles as they used to be, long ago. When there were bright lights in them, and knights and ladies, and music, and maybe a--what do you call them?--a harper to come in out of the storm to sit beside the fireplace and tell tales." He seemed unable to fill in the picture more completely, but Will o'Dreams began where he had left off: "And do you know what is true, as long as you think of the knights and ladies? It means that they are still living. That's what thinking of things means--it means keeping them alive. Most persons die when their children are all dead: at the very latest, when their grandchildren die. But as long as you think of knights and ladies, and picture their ways, why, that keeps them alive. It means that they will never die. That is, as long as there are owls to hoot." He added with a hidden smile, "And as long as I idle about in old attics." "It is very strange," said Everychild, not clearly understanding. "It just needs a little thinking about," declared the giant. "And it's not only in attics that I'm able to help. That old garden we played in to-day . . . do you know what would happen, if certain persons came into it while I was there?" As Everychild did not know, the giant continued: "They would see the columbine growing; and straightway they would think of a poor lady named Ophelia; and then they would think of Shakespeare; and then they would think of the river Avon; and then they would think of lovely English meadows, and then they would think of the sea--because the Avon finally reaches it, you know--and then they would think of ships, and then of Columbus, and then of America, and then of millions of new gardens where the columbine of England found new homes." Everychild was trying to see the pictures as they passed; but he could not quite keep up. And after Will o'Dreams had finished he remained silent, going over it all in his mind. But the giant interrupted him. "There," he said, "we ought not to stay up too late. You know we want to make an early start to-morrow."