And then what she said was ever so slightly muffled, as if at last she had dropped her head in that sweet confusion which she had never seemed to know; as if at last she was looking at Peter as if he _was_ Peter. "Then I don't ever want to be any place where you aren't," she told him. "Miggy!" Peter cried, "take care what you say. Remember--he'd live with us." She made her three little nods. "So he will," she answered, "so he will. He--and my little sister--and all of us." Peter's answer was a shout. "Say it out!" he cried, "say you will. Miggy! I've _got_ to hear you say it out!" "Peter, Peter," she said, "I want to marry you." He took her in his arms and in the room was the glory upon glory of the west, a thing of wings and doors ajar. And strong as the light, there prevailed about them the soul of the Family, that distributes burdens, shares responsibilities, accepts what is and what is to come. Its voice was in the voice of Little Child singing in the garden, and of old Cary babbling at the gate. Its heart was the need of Peter and Miggy, each for the other. I saw in their faces the fine freedoms of the sunset, that sunset where Miggy and Little Child and I had agreed that a certain spirit lives. And it did but tally with the momentous utterance of these things and of the evening when Miggy spoke again. "Go now--you go to him," she said, "we'll wait. And--Peter--when you come back, I want to see everything in the room again." XIX THE CUSTODIAN When the river is low, a broad, flat stone lying a little way from shore at the foot of our lawn becomes an instrument of music. In the day it plays now a rhapsody of sun, now a nocturne of cloud, now the last concerto, Opus Eternal. In the night it becomes a little friendly murmur, a cradle song, slumber spell, neighbour to the Dark, the alien Dark who very likely grows lonely, being the silent sister, whereas the Light goes on blithely companioned of us all. But if I were the Dark and owned the stars, and the potion which quickens conscience, and the sense of the great Spirit brooding, brooding, I do not know that I would exchange and be the Light. Still, the Light has rainbows and toil and the sun and laughter.... After all, it is best to be a human being and to have both Light and Darkness for one's own. And it is concerning this conclusion that the river plays on its instrument of music, this shallow river "--to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals." I have heard our bank cat-birds in the willows sing madrigals to the stone-music until I wanted to be one of them--cat-bird, madrigal, shallows, or anything similar. But the human is perhaps what all these are striving to express, and so I have been granted wish within wish, and life is very good.