But on the morrow, the Man did not go to the wagon shop as he had said; the day was sultry, and showers threatened, so he wandered down “cross lots” until he met the trout stream, and quite unconsciously followed it until he came upon the group of old willows, under whose shade the old Eileen had vanished. It was not until he had almost reached the trees that he noticed there were people there, picnickers, probably, yet something led him to pause and look again. Surely, it was the Boy lying upon the grass, with eager upturned face, listening to some one who was evidently reading aloud; but though figure and book were in sight, foliage concealed the face. Another step, and he saw that the reader was Eileen. The Man must have cried out, for instantly the pair started, and the light fell full upon Eileen’s hair and face, the same as of old, and yet not the same, while the boy came bounding toward him, calling, “Oh, Daddy, so you’ve found out at last where the Princess and I come to read every day!” “The Princess! How came she here?” said the Man, sick at heart, for he thought the strange haunting dreams of his illness were coming back. “She does not live here now.” “She didn’t,” cried the boy, babbling on eagerly, as he pulled the Man under the willows, “but they all came back here after you got sick, and my Princess took me up there to live with her in their house; the doctor let her, and we’ve been playing a fairy story all the time, and she’s been, oh, so very good to me, Daddy. She’s made me custard and cookies, and sang me to sleep when my legs ached from forgetting how to walk; ’n besides, her father told Peter how to plant the fields, and he’s set Jeptha figuring on an awful lot of wagons. But I’ve forgotten, I wasn’t to tell, I wasn’t to tell, because in fairy stories, if you tell, the lights go out and everything stops. Oh, Princess and Daddy, play you didn’t hear. Oh, don’t let it all stop!” and the Boy clasped his hands tightly, while an agony of fear passed over his sensitive face. But the Man had ceased to hear him. Taking two steps that brought him face to face with Eileen, he paused and stood looking down at her, and his expression checked the Boy’s tongue. “Is this all true?” he almost whispered, and as he spoke he grew white to the lips and reeled. “Sit down upon the bank; you have walked too far and you are faint,” she said, spreading a shawl that lay beside her on the grass. He dropped to the seat she offered, but never took his eyes from her own, over which the lids drooped lower and lower. “Is it true?” he repeated. “We came back in April,” she answered softly. “Why?” “Because I saw in the home papers that you were ill, and—I wanted to be near.” “Why, again?” he questioned, almost cruelly, but now he had reached a point where he could bear no uncertainty, no mere palliation.