This was a town no larger than his own and no more fortuned of Nature. Here were buildings not too unlike, and white walls and flowering things and the flow of pure air. But here was also the touch of bells. And he saw that every one went to and fro in a manner of quiet purpose that was like a garment. "Sir, what do you do for yourself?" he asked courteously of one who was passing. The citizen gave him greeting. "I make bread for my family," said he, "and, it may be, a dream or two." Matthew tried hard to perceive, and could make nothing of this. "Your family," he said, "what thing is that?" The citizen looked at him narrowly. "I see that you rebuke me," said he, gently; "but I, too, labor for the community, so that the day shall become a better day." "Community," said Matthew. "Now I know not at all what that may be, either." Then the man understood that here was one who would learn about these things, and in the New Village such a task is sacred and to be assumed on the moment by any to whom the opportunity presents. So the man took Matthew with him. "Come," he said, "this is the day when we meet together." "Together," said Matthew, and without knowing why he liked what he felt when he said that. They went first to the market-place, trodden of many feet, and about it a fair green common planted in gracious lines. Here Matthew found men in shops that were built simply and like one another in fashion, but with pleasant devices of difference, and he found many selling together and many buying, and no one was being robbed. "How can these things be?" he asked. "Here every man stands with the others." "Inside of all things," the citizen answered, "you will find that it is so written." On the common many were assembled to name certain projects and purposes: the following of paths to still clearer spaces, the nurturing of certain people, ways of cleanliness, purity of water, of milk, wide places for play, the fashioning of labour so that the shrines within be not foregone, the freeing of fountains, the planting of green things. "Why will all this be?" asked Matthew. "For these things a man does in his own garden or for his own house, and no other interferes." "Nay, but look deep within all things, Friend," the citizen said, "and you will never find it written so." "Friend," repeated Matthew, "_friend_...." Then the citizen went to his own house, and Matthew with him. The wall was no wall, but a hedge, and the garden was very beautiful. And lo, when they went in, there came tumbling along the path little beings made in the image of the citizen himself. And with them a woman of exceeding beauty and power, which the little ones also bore. As if the citizen had chosen her beauty and power to make them into something other. It was as it had been when the bird was fluttering and beating at the boy's breast, but he did not even heed. "Tell me!" he cried. "These--do they live here with you? Are they yours?"