For the earth, apparently so calm and steady, knows no pause. She moves round her axis without stopping. She rushes with immense rapidity round the sun. Simultaneously with these two movements she combines a third; the sun, carrying her and all his other planets with him, hurries at a prodigious rate through interstellar space, adventuring new regions never seen before. Calm outwardly, and without apparent motion, the earth--at this very moment, as he leaned across the window-sill--was making these three gigantic, endless movements. This peaceful summer morning, like any other peaceful summer morning, she was actually spinning, rushing, rising. And in Maria--it came to him--in Maria, outwardly so calm, something also--spun--rushed--rose! This amazing life that brimmed her full to bursting, even as it brimmed the robin and the earth, overflowed and dripped out of her very eyes in shining blue. There was no need for her to dash about. She, like the earth, was--carried. All this flashed upon him while the alarum clock ticked off a second merely, for imagination telescopes time, of course, and knows things all at once. "What _is_ your secret, Maria?" he asked again. "I believe it's about that Extra Day we meant to steal. Is that it?" Her eyes gazed straight before her across the lawn where Tim and Judy were now visible, searching busily for button-holes. "It was to be your particular adventure, wasn't it?" "Yes," she told him at length, without changing her expression of serene contentment. His imagination warned him he was getting "at her" gradually. He possibly read into her a thousand things that were not there. Certainly, Maria was not aware of them. But, though Uncle Felix knew this perfectly well, he persisted, hoping for a sudden disclosure that would justify his search--even expecting it, perhaps. "And what sort of a day would it be, then, this Extra Day of yours?" he went on. "It would never end, of course, for one thing, would it? There'd be no time?" She nodded quietly by way of effortless agreement and consent. "So that, in a sense, you'd have it always," he said, aware of distinct encouragement. He felt obliged to help her. This was her peculiar power--that everything was done for her while she seemed to do it all herself. "You would live it over and over again, for ever and ever. _That's_ your secret, I expect, isn't it?" "I expect so," the child answered quietly. "I've always got it." She moved in a little closer to his side as she said it. The disclosure he expected seemed so near now that excitement grew in him. Across the lawn he saw the hurrying figures of Tim and Judy, racing back with their button-holes. There was no time to lose. He put his arm about her, tilting her face upwards with one hand to see it plainly. The blue dyes came up with it. "Then, what kind of a day _would_ you choose, Maria? Tell me--in a whisper."