e ground; from overhead floated
down the sweet, shrill chorus of birds. Vanna gazed, her face illumined
with admiration, and her companions in their turn gazed at her face. It
also was good to look at at that moment, and eloquent as only a usually
quiet face can be.

"Oh! how wonderful! It's a _dell_--a glade--a fairy glade! The
unexpectedness of it! Only a few yards from those beds of geraniums!
One feels as if anything like a house or bedding-out plants must be at
the other end of the world... And down there the little stream..." She
lifted her head with a sudden glance of inquiry. "The stream grows
wider surely--there are stepping-stones--at the end there's a lake. I
am _sure_ there is a lake--!"

Before Piers had time to reply, Jean had interrupted with a quick
exclamation:

"Vanna! How did you know? How did you guess? You have never been here
before?"

"Perhaps Miss Strangeways thinks that she has. Have you visited our
glen in another incarnation, Miss Strangeways, that you remember its
details so distinctly?"

Vanna shook her head.

"No; I have never known that feeling. One hears of it, but it doesn't
come to me. It's more like--_expectation_. I seemed for the moment to
see ahead. It must really be a fairy glen, for there's enchantment in
the air. Something--something is going to happen here. I feel it!
Something _good_! We are going to be happy!"

Piers looked at her curiously, but Jean remained charmingly
matter-of-fact.

"Of course we are, and we are going to begin at once. Let's sit down
and talk. It's cool tinder these trees, and I'm sleepy after lunch. So
you don't remember being here before, Vanna? How stupid of you! You
must have a very short memory. We've played here together scores of
times, when there was no white house, and no smooth lawn, and the
grandparents of these old trees were gay young saplings. I was a
wood-nymph, and danced about with the other nymphs all day long, and
flirted with the elves--elves are masculine, I'm sure! and feasted on
nuts. (That habit lasts. I adore them still.) When winter came, I
curled up into a tight little ball in the hollow of an oak, and slept
till spring came back. Where is that old oak, I wonder? I long to meet
it again. And all the long summer days we ate wild strawberries, and
drank out of the stream, and played hide-and-seek among the trees. And
one day, Piers, _you_ came along--do you remember? I peered out from