ow the year was up, and the king sent his wise men to bring the Princess
home, and one day they came to her little hut and carried her back to the
palace, and she was so rosy and well that everybody wondered. Then the
king called the people together, and said, "Oh, Princess, speak to us,
and let us know how you were cured." So the Princess told them of how she
had baked the bread, and built the hut, and conquered the bear; and of
how she had found health and happiness. For the bread that you make with
your own hands is the sweetest, and the shelter that you build for
yourself is the snuggest, and the fear that you face is no fear at all.

* * * * *

The children liked my story, and I felt very brave when I had finished
it. You see, I have been forgetting our sunsets, and I have been shivery
and shaky when I should have faced my Big Black Bear!

Beulah is ready to go--and so--good-night. The moon is high up and round,
and as pure gold as your own loving heart.

Ever your own

ANNE.

CHAPTER XI

_In Which Brinsley Speaks of the Way to Win a Woman._

AND now spring was coming to the countryside. The snow melted, and the
soft rains fell, and on sunny days Diogenes, splashing in the little
puddles, picked and pulled at his feathers as he preened himself in the
shelter of the south bank which overlooked the river.

Some of the feathers were tipped with shining green and some with brown.
Some of them fell by the way, some floated out on blue tides, and one of
them was wafted by the wind to the feet of Geoffrey Fox, as, on a certain
morning, he, too, stood on the south bank.

He picked it up and stuck it in his hat. "I'll wear it for my lady," he
said to the old drake, "and much good may it do me!"

The old drake lifted his head toward the sky, and gave a long cry. But it
was not for Anne that he called. She still gave him food and drink. He
still met her at the gate. If her mind was less upon him than in the
past, it mattered little. The things that held meaning for him this
morning were the glory of the sunshine, and the softness of the breeze.
Stirring within him was a need above and beyond anything that Geoffrey
could give, or Anne. He listened not for the step of the little
school-teacher, but for the whirring wings of some comrade of his own
kind. Again and again he sent forth his cry to the empty air.

Geoffrey's heart echoed the cry. His book was finished, and it was t