CHAPTER VII. MEIN HERR. So I went on my lonely way, and, on reaching the Hall, I found Lady Muriel standing at the garden-gate waiting for me. “No need to _give_ you joy, or to _wish_ you joy?” I began. “None _whatever_!” she replied, with the joyous laugh of a child. “We _give_ people what they haven’t got: we _wish_ for something that is yet to come. For _me_, it’s all _here_! It’s all _mine_! Dear friend,” she suddenly broke off, “do you think Heaven ever begins on _Earth_, for any of us?” “For _some_,” I said. “For some, perhaps, who are simple and childlike. You know He said ‘of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.’” Lady Muriel clasped her hands, and gazed up into the cloudless sky, with a look I had often seen in Sylvie’s eyes. “I feel as if it had begun for _me_,” she almost whispered. “I feel as if _I_ were one of the happy children, whom He bid them bring near to Him, though the people would have kept them back. Yes, He has seen me in the throng. He has read the wistful longing in my eyes. He has beckoned me to Him. They have _had_ to make way for me. He has taken me up in His arms. He has put His hands upon me and blessed me!” She paused, breathless in her perfect happiness. “Yes,” I said. “I think He has!” “You must come and speak to my father,” she went on, as we stood side by side at the gate, looking down the shady lane. But, even as she said the words, the ‘eerie’ sensation came over me like a flood: I saw the dear old Professor approaching us, and also saw, what was stranger still, that he was visible to _Lady Muriel_! What was to be done? Had the fairy-life been merged in the real life? Or was Lady Muriel ‘eerie’ also, and thus able to enter into the fairy-world along with me? The words were on my lips (“I see an old friend of mine in the lane: if you don’t know him, may I introduce him to you?”) when the strangest thing of all happened: Lady Muriel spoke. “I see an old friend of mine in the lane,” she said: “if you don’t know him, may I introduce him to you?” I seemed to wake out of a dream: for the ‘eerie’ feeling was still strong upon me, and the figure outside seemed to be changing at every moment, like one of the shapes in a kaleidoscope: now he was the _Professor_, and now he was somebody else! By the time he had reached the gate, he certainly was somebody else: and I felt that the proper course was for _Lady Muriel_, not for _me_, to introduce him. She greeted him kindly, and, opening the gate, admitted the venerable old man—a German, obviously—who looked about him with dazed eyes, as if _he_, too, had but just awaked from a dream! No, it was certainly _not_ the Professor! My old friend _could_ not have grown that magnificent beard since last we met: moreover, he would have recognised _me_, for I was certain that _I_ had not changed much in the time.