In the night all the tide of mist and fog drained out to sea and left the heavens tender. By the sun we saw that we had come much nearer the coast than I had realized; we saw the sapphire spangled belt of the sea lying low under the hills, and suspected a faint odor of drying weed mixed with the breath of the budding forest. Gladness came up with the sun and sang the love of life awake. Spread abroad seeking food, we heard the Outliers laughing in the well sunned spaces. It was still very early and the shadows airy when they called to us. They came about us in a ring of friendly faces, and it was so good a day to be alive in, we had forgotten to be afraid what they might do with us. “You heard us say last night,” began Persilope, when we had been brought before him in a grass walk between the madroños, “how we should go south from here where the forest comes down to the sea and there are no House-Livers. The places where you knew us we shall not know again.” He saddened at that, and a shadow of sadness fell on all their faces. “But I doubt”—here he smiled—“if we were still there, whether you could find us again.” “Not without your consent.” “You came to us strangely,” he went on, “in a strange time, and trouble entered with you.” “Not of our making,” Herman reminded him, “nor our wishing.” “We are sensible of that, and also that we had good from you. Therefore”—he looked about on the Outliers and the nudging and whisper of agreement ran from group to group of them—“we wish to give you good in return. We have nothing to give you such as House-Folk value, nothing but your memory of us, which we hope you may hold as lovingly as we do yours.” “We do so,” said Herman. “Will you take that memory then, as our gift of parting, so to keep it as the best we have to offer?” “So to keep it as the best we have to keep,” consented Herman solemnly, and I after him. “Why then,” said Persilope, “there is nothing more for it but to set you on your way to Broken Tree again, and to wish you Good Friending.”