"I don't quite know," replied Gratian, and he spoke the truth. It was always difficult for him to distinguish between real and fancy, dreaming and waking, in all concerning his four friends, and in some curious way this difficulty increased so much if he ever thought of talking about them, that he felt he was not meant to do so. "I have fancies sometimes--like dreams, perhaps--that I can't explain. And they help me often--when I am in any trouble they help me." "I don't see how fancies can help you to find things that are lost," said Fergus, who, except in his own particular way, was more practical than Gratian, "unless you mean that you dream things, and your dreams come true." "It's a little like that," Gratian replied. "I think I had a sort of dream about coming here. I did so want to come--most of all since I heard the lady play in church." "Yes," said Fergus, "isn't mother's playing beautiful? I've not heard her play in church for ever so long, but I'm so glad there's an organ here. She plays to me every day. I like music best of everything in the world--don't you?" To which Gratian gave his old answer--"I don't know yet." Then they began talking of more commonplace things. Each told the other of his daily life and all his childish interests. Fergus was greatly struck by the account of Gratian's home--the old house with the queer name. "How I should like to see it," he said, "and to feel the wind blow." "The winds," corrected Gratian, "the four winds." "The _four_ winds," repeated Fergus. "North, south, east, and west. They don't blow all together, do they?" "I think they do sometimes. Yes, I know they do--at night I'm sure I've heard them all four together, like tones in music." Fergus looked delighted. "Ah, you have to come back to music, you see," he said. "There's nothing tells everything and explains everything as well as music." "You must have thought about it a great deal," said Gratian admiringly. "I've only just begun to think about things, and I think it's very puzzling, though I'm older than you. I don't know if music would explain things to me." "Perhaps not as much as to me," said Fergus. "You see it's been my best thing--ever since I was five years old I've been lying like this. At home the others are very kind, but they can't quite understand," he added, shaking his head a little sadly; "they can all run about and jump and play. And when children can do all that, they don't need to think much. Still it is very dull without them--that is why I begged mother to try to get me somebody to play with. But I think you're better than that, Gratian. I think you understand more--how is it? You've never been ill or had to lie still." "No," said the boy, "but I've had no brothers and sisters to play with me. And perhaps it's with being born at Four Winds--mother says so herself." "I daresay it is," said Fergus gravely.