Now I don't know how _you_ feel, but the story of this great-grandmother of mine always seems sort of kind and warm and sacred to me, a mixture of the stillness of an old-fashioned Sabbath and the first awakening hush when you remember that it is your birthday--a sort of religious fairyland, if you know what I mean--like "playing house" (oh, such a long time ago!) with Puck and Ariel and the Queen of the Fairies, while several of the very nicest people out of the Bible stories sat in the shade and watched--perhaps Ruth and, of course, her mother-in-law, and David when he was very young, and kept sheep also. He would certainly come to see our play--his shepherd's crook in his hand, and his eye occasionally taking a survey of great-grandmother's flocks and herds to see that there were no lions or bears about! Yes, I know it's fearfully silly. Of course it is. But, all the same, I have oftener put myself happily to sleep thinking about that, and with the music of the Cluden Water low in my ear, than with all the wisdom that ever I learned at school! So there! Of course you mustn't suppose that at the time I said a word of all this even to the Maid, much less to the others. Though I do think that father, who knows a lot of things without being told, partly guessed what I was thinking of. For once when we had all got down to gather flowers, he led me down to the water's edge, and, pointing across the clear purl of the stream to the opposite bank (where is a little green level, with, in the midst, a still greener Fairy Ring), he took my hand and, standing behind me, pointed with it. "It was there!" he whispered. He did not say a word more. But that was enough. I understood, and he knew that I understood. It was like the old days when we made our travels together, he and I, with the Things of the Wide World running back past us, all beautiful and all sweet as dreaming of plucking flowers in the kindly shade of woods.