They had been out for several hours flying through a rainstorm, the thousand little drops of which stung their faces like tiny gun-shot. About two in the morning the wind shifted and drove the clouds away as by magic; the stars came out, at first like the eyes of children still dim with crying, but later with a clear brilliance that filled Jimbo and the governess with keen pleasure. The air was washed and perfumed; the night luminous, alive, singing. All its tenderness and passion entered their hearts and filled them with the wonder of its glory. "Come down, Jimbo," said the governess, "and we'll lie in the trees and smell the air after the rain." "Yes," added the boy, whose Older Self had been whispering mysterious things to him, "and watch the stars and hear them singing." He led the way to some beech trees that lined a secluded lane, and settled himself comfortably in the top branches of the largest, while the governess soon found a resting-place beside him. It was a deserted spot, far from human habitation. Here and there through the foliage they could see little pools of rain-water reflecting the sky. The group of trees swung in the wind, dreaming great woodland dreams, and overhead the stars looked like a thousand orchards in the sky, filling the air with the radiance of their blossoms. "How brilliant they are to-night," said the governess, after watching the boy attentively for some minutes as they lay side by side in the great forked branch. "I never saw the constellations so clear." "But they have so little shape," he answered dreamily; "if we wore lights when we flew about we should make much better constellations than they do." "The Big and Little Child instead of the Big and Little Bear," she laughed, still watching him. "I'm slipping away----" he began, and then stopped suddenly. He saw the expression of his companion's eyes, which were looking him through and through with the most poignant love and yearning mingled in their gaze, and something clutched at his heart that he could not understand. "----not slipping out of the tree," he went on vaguely, "but slipping into some new place or condition. I don't understand it. Am I--going off somewhere--where you can't follow? I thought suddenly--I was losing you." The governess smiled at him sadly and said nothing. She stroked his wings and then raised them to her lips and kissed them. Jimbo watched her, and folded his other wing across into her hands; he felt unhappy, and his heart began to swell within him; but he didn't know what to say, and the Older Self began slowly to fade away again. "But the stars," he went on, "have they got things they send out too--forces, I mean, like the trees? Do they send out something that makes us feel sad, or happy, or strong, or weak?"