ory from the company and looked between. He
almost stopped breathing. He had read of things like that, but he never
had seen them.

The open space seemed to stretch through half a dozen rooms, all ablaze
with lights, perfumed with flowers, and filled with elegantly dressed
people. There were glimpses of polished floors, sparkling glass, and
fine furnishings. From somewhere, the voice of his beloved Bird Woman
arose and fell.

The Angel crowded beside him and was watching also.

"Doesn't it look pretty?" she whispered.

"Do you suppose Heaven is any finer than that?" asked Freckles.

The Angel began to laugh.

"Do you want to be laughing harder than that?" queried Freckles.

"A laugh is always good," said the Angel. "A little more avoirdupois
won't hurt me. Go ahead."

"Well then," said Freckles, "it's only that I feel all over as if I
belonged there. I could wear fine clothes, and move over those floors,
and hold me own against the best of them."

"But where does my laugh come in?" demanded the Angel, as if she had
been defrauded.

"And you ask me where the laugh comes in, looking me in the face after
that," marveled Freckles.

"I wouldn't be so foolish as to laugh at such a manifest truth as that,"
said the Angel. "Anyone who knows you even half as well as I do, knows
that you are never guilty of a discourtesy, and you move with twice the
grace of any man here. Why shouldn't you feel as if you belonged where
people are graceful and courteous?"

"On me soul!" said Freckles, "you are kind to be thinking it. You are
doubly kind to be saying it."

The curtains parted and a woman came toward them. Her silks and laces
trailed across the polished floors. The lights gleamed on her neck and
arms, and flashed from rare jewels. She was smiling brightly; and until
she spoke, Freckles had not realized fully that it was his loved Bird
Woman.

Noticing his bewilderment, she cried: "Why, Freckles! Don't you know me
in my war clothes?"

"I do in the uniform in which you fight the Limberlost," said Freckles.

The Bird Woman laughed. Then he told her why he had come, but she
scarcely could believe him. She could not say exactly when she would go,
but she would make it as soon as possible, for she was most anxious for
the study.

While they talked, the Angel was busy packing a box of sandwiches,
cake, fruit, and flowers. She gave him a last frosty glass, thanked him
repeatedly for bringing news of new material; then