“Well, I’ll try again,” she said. “Sometimes when I’m not where four winds meet, I’m at the end of all the rainbows. Do you know that place?” “I never heard of it. Is it very far away?” “It’s farther than anything--farther even than the place where the winds meet.” “And what do you do there? You must have bags and bags of gold, O Spirit.” “Yes. Of course. I practice hiding things with them. That is why no one ever found a bag of gold at the end of a rainbow. I have put countless ones in the cave of lost treasure. There are a great many things there besides the bags of gold,--things that parents, and uncles, and aunts lose,--and never find any more.” “I wish I could visit the place,” I said with a sigh. “It would be pleasant to see a storehouse like that. It would have, I may say, a strong personal interest. Only yesterday I contributed a valued scarf-pin through the agency of a certain mischievous niece; and I shall be long in recovering from the loss of that miraculous putter that made me a terror on the links. My golf can never be the same again.” “But you never can see the place,” she declared. “A time comes when you can’t find it any more, the cave of lost treasure--or the place where four winds meet--or the end of all the rainbows.” “I suppose I have lost my chance,” I said. “Oh, long ago!” exclaimed the Spirit disdainfully. “It never lasts beyond six!” “That has a wise sound. Pray tell me more! Tell me, I beg, how you have endured this harsh world so long.” This, I thought, was a poser; but she answered readily enough. “I suppose, because I am kindred of so many, many things that live on forever. There are the colors on water when the sun strikes it through clouds. It can be green and gold and blue and silver all at once; and then there is the foam of the white caps. It is foam for a moment and then it is just water again. And there is the moonlight on rippling water, that goes away and never comes any more--not just the same. The mirth in the heart of a child is like all these things; and the heart of a child is the place I love best.” “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure it is better than the place where all the winds meet, or that other rainbow-place that you told me about.” “And then,” she began again, “you know that children say things sometimes just in fun, but no one ever seems to understand that.” “To be sure,” I said feelingly, remembering how Jessamine loved to tease and plague me. “But there isn’t any harm in it--any more than--” “Yes?” a little impatiently. “Than in the things the pines say when the wind runs over the top of them. They are not--not important, exactly,--but they are always different. That is the best thing about being a child--the being different part. You have a grown-up word that means always just the same.” “Consistent?” I asked. “That is it. A child that is consistent is wrong some way. But I don’t remember having seen any of that kind.”