She fell silent, gazing straight before her with the cloud of thought in her eyes. Bones, sprawling across her lap, licked her hand to attract her attention; she drew her hand away, but took no other notice. The brook bubbled past her feet; its murmurous monologue emphasized her silence. Through lichened trees the farmhouse glowed red. In and out the shadows the sunshine danced like a gold-haired child. “If fathers are really nice,” she sighed wistfully, “p’raps I ought to have a father for my little girl. When we’re both growed up, I might ask you. Would you be her father, per--perhaps?” Stretched at her side, he glanced up to see the mischief creep about the edges of her mouth. But her face was no longer elfin; it was earnest and troubled with things beyond her knowledge. When she looked like that she seemed older than twelve--almost the same age as himself; there were so many things that he, too, could not understand. He reflected that they both were very like Bones with their easily damped enthusiasm. A wave of pity swept through him; she was so slight, so dainty, so unprotected. He forgot his pigeons; he forgot everything that had happened before meeting her. He felt that of all things in the world, were he given the choice, he would ask that she might be his sister. Stooping his head, he kissed the white petal of a hand where it lay unfolded in the grass. She looked down at him quietly. “My darling mother would say, ’You mustn’t let boys do that.’ But I expect she would let you do it. Do you--do you think I’m an odd child? Every one says I am.” He laughed with a thrill of excitement; she made him feel so much younger than his yesterday self. “I couldn’t tell you, Princess. I’ve never known any girls. But you’re beautiful, and you’re dear, and you’re----” “Let’s be tremenjous friends,” she whispered. Through the long summer days that followed they lived in a world of self-created magic--a world which, because they had made it, belonged wholly to themselves. Its chief delight was that they alone could see it. No one else knew that the brook was a girl and that the mountain-ash that grew beside it was her lover. The boy turned back from his dreams of manhood to meet the childhood of the little girl; it was one last glorious flash of innocence before the curtain fell But in the presence of Farmer Joseph and Sarie, and of Hal when he came to visit them, he was shy of his friendship with Desire. “You’re ashamed of me because I’m a girl and little,” she said. “But I know more than you do about--oh, lots of things!”