I watched her hands as they deftly cut and fashioned the dry reeds. The air grew warm as the sun climbed to the zenith, and Hezekiah flung aside her coat. The breeze caught the ends of her tie and snapped them behind her. She was wholly absorbed in her task, and no boy could have managed a pocket-knife better. The first reed she made a trifle longer than her hand; the succeeding ones she trimmed to graduated lessening lengths, till seven in all had been cut, and then she notched them. "Seven," she murmured, laying them neatly in order on her knee. "I remember the right number by a poem I read the other day in an old magazine." She reached down and plucked several long leaves of tough grass with which she began to bind the reeds together, repeating,-- "Seven gold reeds grew tall and slim, Close by the river's beaded brim. "Syrnix the naiad flitted past: Pan, the goat-hoofed, followed fast. "It will be easier," said Hezekiah, "if you hold the pipes while I tie them." I found this propinquity wholly agreeable. It was pleasant to sit on a log beside Hezekiah. It seemed no far cry to the storied Mediterranean and Pan and dryads and naiads, as Hezekiah bound her reeds to the music of couplets. There was no self-consciousness in her recitation; she seemed to be telling me of something that she had seen herself an hour ago. "He spread his arms to clasp her there Just as she vanished into air. "And to his bosom warm and rough Drew the gold reeds close enough. "I don't remember the rest," she broke off. "But there! That's a pipe fit for any shepherd." She put it to her lips and blew. I shall not pretend that the result was melodious: she whistled much better without the reeds; but the sight of her, sitting on the fallen tree beside the lake, beating time with her foot, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed in a mockery of rapture at the shrill, wheezy uncertainties and ineptitudes she evoked, thrilled me with new and wonderful longings. A heart, a spirit like hers would never grow old! She was next of kin to all the elusive, fugitive company of the elf-world. And on such a pipe as she had strung together beside that pond, to this day Sicilian shepherd boys whistle themselves into tune with Theocritus! [Illustration: She put it to her lips and blew.] "Take it," she said; "I can't tell you more than I have; and yet it is all there, Chimneys. Read the riddle of the reeds if you can." I took the pipe and turned it over carefully in my hands; but I fear my thoughts were rather of the hands that had fashioned it, the fingers that had danced nimbly upon the stops. "There are seven reeds,--seven," she affirmed. She amused herself by skipping pebbles over the surface of the water while I pondered. And I deliberated long, for one did not like to blunder before Hezekiah! Then I jumped up and called to her.