(_Distributing kisses all round_.) My sweethearts!... What darlings you are, and how happy I feel!... I hope I have not made you walk too fast?... You must forgive me; I am rather in a hurry.... Jalline dear, you haven't hurt your foot, have you?... And you, Rosarelle? You are not used to climbing rocks.... Aimette's hands are cold and Roselle has made herself much too hot.... LIGHT Come, we will talk about all this later. We must now hasten to the Ancestors, who are waiting for us and would be very much annoyed if we arrived late.... DESTINY (_Who has grown smaller still and is now hardly taller than a man of average height. He seems very tired and sits huddled on a boulder_.) Not a step farther!... TYLTYL Hullo! You've grown a bit smaller again!... DESTINY I? I've not changed. I am always the same, I am.... TYLTYL I know, I know.... It's Light being so near, perhaps.... DESTINY Light and I have nothing in common.... In any event, I alone am master and I order a halt.... LIGHT By all means; there is no need to go any farther. We have arrived; we are here without taking another step, at the abode of the Ancestors.... (_The curtain parts and opens upon the next scene_.) SCENE VII _The Abode of the Ancestors_ _A large open space, under an Elysian light, which imparts to all things an aspect of ethereal and lasting felicity and unchanging gladness. The back and the two sides of the square are formed of dwelling-places of different periods, some stately, some lowly, but all radiant and a little unreal. In the foreground, on the right, for instance, is the entrance to the cottage of_ TYLTYL'S _grandparents; next comes the gable of a farm-house of older date; then the front of a little eighteenth-century shop; and thus in succession, running from right to left and across the back, a seventeenth-century town-house, a sixteenth-century prison, tavern and hospital, a fifteenth-century mansion; some thirteenth-century hovels, a twelfth-century church, a Gallo-Roman farm and villa, and so on. Intersecting the background at the middle is a street in endless perspective, bordered with the very oldest houses and leading to the huts and caves of primitive mankind. In the foreground are a few stone benches standing under fine trees, laurels, plane-trees or cypresses_. (TYLTYL, LIGHT, DESTINY _and_ THE SIX GIRLS _come forward, followed at a distance by_ THE WHITE PHANTOM, _who keeps to one side as usual. They have taken but a few steps when_ GAFFER _and_ GRANNY TYL _come hurrying out of their cottage and, with exclamations of delight, throw themselves into_ TYLTYL'S _arms_.) GRANNY TYL