The green secrecy of the wood received her. She passed along the winding path between the straight, stiff poles of the larches, the gloom of the dead lower boughs making the living green above more vivid. It was like plunging from realism into romance, or opening some quaint old book after reading an article on the workings of the London County Council. Eve was back in the world of beauty, of mystery and strangeness. The eyes could not see too far, yet vision was stopped by crowded and miraculous life and not by bricks and mortar. The trees thinned. She was on the edge of the fairy dell, and she paused instinctively with a feeling that was akin to awe. How the sunlight poured down between the green tree tops. Three weeks ago the bluebells must have been one spreading mist of lapis-lazuli under the gloom of the criss-cross branches. And the silence of it all. She knew herself to be in the midst of mystery, of a vital something that mattered more than all the gold in the world. Supposing Lynette should be down yonder? Eve went forward slowly, and looked over the lip of the dell. Lynette was there, kneeling in front of the toy stove that Eve had sent her for Christmas. An extraordinary uprush of tenderness carried Eve away. She stood on the edge of the dell and called: “Lynette! Lynette!” The child’s hair flashed as she turned sharply. Her face looked up at Eve, wonderingly, mute with surprise. Then she was up and running, her red lips parted, her eyes alight. “Miss Eve! Miss Eve!” They met half way, Eve melting towards the running child like the eternal mother-spirit that opens its arms and catches life to its bosom. They hugged and kissed. Lynette’s warm lips thrilled the woman in Eve through and through. “Oh, my dear, you haven’t forgotten me!” “I knew—I knew you’d come back again!” “How did you know?” “Because I asked God. God must like to do nice things sometimes, and of course, when I kept asking Him——. And now you’ve come back for ever and ever!” “Oh, no, no!” “But you have. I asked God for that too, and I have been so good that I don’t see, Miss Eve, dear, how He could have said no.” Eve laughed, soft, tender laughter that was on the edge of tears. “So you are still making feasts for the fairies?” “Yes, come and look. The water ought to be boiling. I’ve got your stove. It’s a lovely stove. Daddy and I make tea in it, and it’s splendid.” Every thing was in readiness, the water on the boil, the fairy teapot waiting to be filled, the sugar and milk standing at attention. Eve and Lynette knelt down side by side. They were back in the Golden Age, where no one knew or thought too much, and where no one was greedy. “And they drink the tea up every night?” “Nearly every night. And they’re so fond of cheese biscuits.” “I don’t see any biscuits!” “No, daddy brings them in his pocket. He’ll be here any minute. Won’t it be a surprise!” Eve awoke; the dream was broken; she started to her feet. “Dear, I must be getting back.”