the wood; he was as beautiful as the spring; he cut the brown reed
and fashioned it according to his liking; and then he put it to

his lips and breathed on it; and, oh, the music that floated
through the forest! It was so entrancing that everything--brooks

and birds and winds--grew silent to listen to it. Never had
anything so lovely been heard; it was the music that had for so

long been shut up in the soul of the sighing reed and was set free
at last through its pain and suffering.

I had heard the Story Girl tell many a more dramatic tale; but
that one stands out for me in memory above them all, partly,

perhaps, because of the spot in which she told it, partly because
it was the last one I was to hear her tell for many years--the

last one she was ever to tell me on the golden road.
When Uncle Blair had finished his sketch the shafts of sunshine

were turning crimson and growing more and more remote; the early
autumn twilight was falling over the woods. We left our dell,

saying good-bye to it for ever, as the Story Girl had suggested,
and we went slowly homeward through the fir woods, where a

haunting, indescribable odour stole out to meet us.
"There is magic in the scent of dying fir," Uncle Blair was saying

aloud to himself, as if forgetting he was not quite alone. "It
gets into our blood like some rare, subtly-compounded wine, and

thrills us with unutterable sweetnesses, as of recollections from
some other fairer life, lived in some happier star. Compared to

it, all other scents seem heavy and earth-born, luring to the
valleys instead of the heights. But the tang of the fir summons

onward and upward to some 'far-off, divine event'--some spiritual
peak of attainmentwhence we shall see with unfaltering, unclouded

vision the spires of some aerial City Beautiful, or the fulfilment
of some fair, fadeless land of promise."

He was silent for a moment, then added in a lower tone,
"Felicity, you loved the scent of dying fir. If you were here

tonight with me--Felicity--Felicity!"
Something in his voice made me suddenly sad. I was comforted when

I felt the Story Girl slip her hand into mine. So we walked out
of the woods into the autumn dusk.

We were in a little valley. Half-way up the opposite slope a
brush fire was burning clearly and steadily in a maple grove.

There was something indescribably alluring in that fire, glowing
so redly against the dark background of forest and twilit hill.

"Let us go to it," cried Uncle Blair, gaily, casting aside his
sorrowful mood and catching our hands. "A wood fire at night has

a fascination not to be resisted by those of mortal race. Hasten--
we must not lose time."

"Oh, it will burn a long time yet," I gasped, for Uncle Blair was
whisking us up the hill at a merciless rate.

"You can't be sure. It may have been lighted by some good, honest
farmer-man, bent on tidying up his sugar orchard, but it may also,

for anything we know, have been kindled by no earthlywoodman as a
beacon or summons to the tribes of fairyland, and may vanish away

if we tarry."
It did not vanish and presently we found ourselves in the grove.

It was very beautiful; the fire burned with a clear, steady glow
and a soft crackle; the long arcades beneath the trees were

illuminated with a rosy radiance, beyond which lurked companies of
gray and purple shadows. Everything was very still and dreamy and

remote.
"It is impossible that out there, just over the hill, lies a

village of men, where tame household lamps are shining," said
Uncle Blair.

"I feel as if we must be thousands of miles away from everything
we've ever known," murmured the Story Girl.

"So you are!" said Uncle Blair emphatically. "You're back in the
youth of the race--back in the beguilement of the young world.

Everything is in this hour--the beauty of classic myths, the
primal charm of the silent and the open, the lure of mystery.

Why, it's a time and place when and where everything might come
true--when the men in green might creep out to join hands and

dance around the fire, or dryads steal from their trees to warm
their white limbs, grown chilly in October frosts, by the blaze.

I wouldn't be much surprised if we should see something of the
kind. Isn't that the flash of an ivory shoulder through yonder

gloom? And didn't you see a queer little elfin face peering at us
around that twisted gray trunk? But one can't be sure. Mortal

eyesight is too slow and clumsy a thing to match against the
flicker of a pixy-litten fire."

Hand in hand we wandered through that enchanted place, seeking the
folk of elf-land, "and heard their mystic voices calling, from

fairy knoll and haunted hill." Not till the fire died down into
ashes did we leave the grove. Then we found that the full moon

was gleaming lustrously from a cloudless sky across the valley.
Between us and her stretched up a tall pine, wondrously straight

and slender and branchless to its very top, where it overflowed in
a crest of dark boughs against the silvery splendour behind it.

Beyond, the hill farms were lying in a suave, white radiance.
"Doesn't it seem a long, long time to you since we left home this

afternoon?" asked the Story Girl. "And yet it is only a few hours."
Only a few hours--true; yet such hours were worth a cycle of

common years untouched by the glory and the dream.
CHAPTER XXIX

WE LOSE A FRIEND
Our beautiful October was marred by one day of black tragedy--the

day Paddy died. For Paddy, after seven years of as happy a life
as ever a cat lived, died suddenly--of poison, as was supposed.

Where he had wandered in the darkness to meet his doom we did not
know, but in the frosty dawnlight he dragged himself home to die.

We found him lying on the doorstep when we got up, and it did not
need Aunt Janet's curt announcement, or Uncle Blair's reluctant

shake of the head, to tell us that there was no chance of our pet
recovering this time. We felt that nothing could be done. Lard

and sulphur on his paws would be of no use, nor would any visit to
Peg Bowen avail. We stood around in mournful silence; the Story

Girl sat down on the step and took poor Paddy upon her lap.
"I s'pose there's no use even in praying now," said Cecily

desperately.
"It wouldn't do any harm to try," sobbed Felicity.

"You needn't waste your prayers," said Dan mournfully, "Pat is
beyond human aid. You can tell that by his eyes. Besides, I

don't believe it was the praying cured him last time."
"No, it was Peg Bowen," declared Peter, "but she couldn't have

bewitched him this time for she's been away for months, nobody
knows where."

"If he could only TELL us where he feels the worst!" said Cecily
piteously. "It's so dreadful to see him suffering and not be able

to do a single thing to help him!"
"I don't think he's suffering much now," I said comfortingly.

The Story Girl said nothing. She passed and repassed her long
brown hand gently over her pet's glossy fur. Pat lifted his head

and essayed to creep a little nearer to his belovedmistress. The
Story Girl drew his limp body close in her arms. There was a

plaintive little mew--a long quiver--and Paddy's friendly soul had
fared forth to wherever it is that good cats go.

"Well, he's gone," said Dan, turning his back abruptly to us.
"It doesn't seem as if it can be true," sobbed Cecily. "This time

yesterday morning he was full of life."
"He drank two full saucers of cream," moaned Felicity, "and I saw

him catch a mouse in the evening. Maybe it was the last one he