"It seems rather a waste of force," she said to herself, with a whimsical smile. "I feel like Niagara, spending its strength on empty splashings, when it might be turning thousands of electric engines and lighting millions of electric lights, if only its power were turned in the right direction and properly stored. I could be so much to anybody who really needed me--I feel I could; but nobody seems to need me, so it's no use bothering. Anyway, I have my art, and that more than satisfies me; and I will spend my life in giving forth my strength to the world at large, in the shape of pictures which shall help the world to be better and happier. At least I hope so." And with this reflection Elisabeth endeavoured to console herself for the non-appearance of that fairy prince, who, in her childish dreams, had always been wounded in the tournament of life, and had turned to her for comfort. The years which had passed so drearily for Christopher, had cast their shadows also over the lives of Alan and Felicia Tremaine. When Willie was a baby, his nurse accidentally let him fall; and the injury he then received was so great that, as he grew older, he was never able to walk properly, but had to punt himself about with a little crutch. This was a terrible blow to Alan; and became all the greater as time went on, and Felicia had no other children to share his devotion. Felicia, too, felt it sorely; but she fretted more over the sorrow it was to her husband than on her own account. There was a great friendship between Willie and Elisabeth. Weakness of any kind always appealed to her, and he, poor child! was weak indeed. So when Elisabeth was at the Willows and Willie at the Moat House, the two spent much time together. He never wearied of hearing about the things that she had pretended when she was a little girl; and she never wearied of telling him about them. "And so the people, who lived among the smoke and the furnaces, followed the pillar of cloud till it led them to the country on the other side of the hills," said Willie one day, as he and Elisabeth were sitting on the old rustic seat in the Willows' garden. "I remember; but tell me, what did they find in the country over there?" And he pointed with his thin little finger to the blue hills beyond the green valley. "They found everything that they wanted," replied Elisabeth. "Not the things that other people thought would be good for them, you know; but just the dear, foolish, impossible things that they had wanted for themselves." "And did the things make them happy?" "Perfectly happy--much happier than the wise, desirable, sensible things could have made them." "I suppose they could all walk without crutches," suggested Willie. "Of course they could; and they could understand everything without being told." "And the other people loved them very much, and were very kind to them, weren't they?"