ade by the country
people to the spirits of the well.

[Illustration: Chapter Nine]

CHAPTER IX.--_The White Roses_

JEANIE sat down beside the well. She wished her three wishes: to see
Randal, to win him back from Fairyland, and to help the people in
the famine. Then she knelt on the grass, and looked down into the
well-water. At first she saw nothing but the smooth black water, with
little waves trembling in it. Then the water began to grow bright
within, as if the sun was shining far, far below. Then it grew as clear
as crystal, and she saw through it, like a glass, into a new country--a
beautiful country with a wide green plain, and in the midst of the plain
a great castle, with golden flags floating from the tops of all the
towers. Then she heard a curious whispering noise that thrilled and
murmured, as if the music of all the trees that the wind blows through
the world were in her ears, as if the noise of all the waves of every
sea, and the rustling of heather-bells on every hill, and the singing
of all birds were sounding, low and sweet, far, far away. Then she saw
a great company of knights and ladies, dressed in green, ride up to the
castle; and one knight rode apart from the rest, on a milk-white steed.
They all went into the castle gates; but this knight rode slowly and
sadly behind the others, with his head bowed on his breast.

Then the musical sounds were still, and the castle and the plain seemed
to wave in the water. Next they quite vanished, and the well grew dim,
and then grew dark and black and smooth as it had been before. Still
she looked, and the little well bubbled up with sparkling foam, and so
became still again, like a mirror, till Jeanie could see her own face
in it, and beside her face came the reflection of another face, a young
man's, dark, and sad, and beautiful. The lips smiled at her, and then
Jeanie knew it was Randal. She thought he must be looking over her
shoulder, and she leaped up with a cry, and glanced round.

But she was all alone, and the wood about her was empty and silent. The
light had gone out of the sky, which was pale like silver, and overhead
she saw the evening star.

Then Jeanie thought all was over. She had seen Randal as if it had been
in a glass, and she hardly knew him: he was so much older, and his face
was so sad. She sighed, and turned to go away over the hills, back, to
Fairnilee.

But her feet did not seem to carry her the way she wanted to go. I