ing from all else that has happened in Outer Life--much too
good to be true. Yet there it was, that streak of dull, mote-misted
gold, painting what actually appeared to be a crack between the dark
frame of the door and the dark old door itself--just such gold as Barrie
had seen at least once a day ever since she could remember (except when
mumps and measles kept her in bed) by applying an eye to the keyhole.
"Fairy gold" she had named it.

The only person who ever went into the garret was Mrs. Muir, and though
she had the air of making no secret of such expeditions, it had always
struck Barrie as deliciously, thrillingly strange that invariably she
turned the key of the stairway door upon herself the instant she was on
the other side, and religiously performed the same ceremony on letting
herself out. "Ceremony" really was the word, because the key was large,
ancient, and important-looking, and squeaked sepulchrally while it
turned. Barrie knew all this, because in spring and autumn, when Mrs.
Muir paid her visits to fairylands forlorn beyond the oak door, Barrie
lurked under cover of the convenient, thick, and well-placed shadow
behind the grandfather clock on the landing.

It was not autumn now, which was part of the mystery, after these
endless years of routine (they seemed endless to Barrie at eighteen),
and she would certainly have missed the event had this not been her
keyhole hour.

Somehow she had become aware--through heredity and race memory, no
doubt--that looking through keyholes was caddish, a trick unworthy of
any lady who was at heart a gentleman. But there are exceptions to all
keyholes, and this was one, because, as none save ghosts and fairies
lived or moved behind it in the garret, there was nobody to spy upon.
You looked through to stimulate the romance in your starved soul and
save it from death by inanition, because if romance died, then indeed
the Outer Life at Hillard House would be no longer bearable.

Barrie paid her respects to the keyhole o' mornings, for two reasons.
The first and commonplace reason was because Mrs. Muir was busy
downstairs and had no eye to spare to see whether other eyes were glued
to the wrong places. The second and more charming reason was because in
the morning the golden haze floated behind the keyhole like shimmering
water with the sun shining deep into it. By afternoon there was nothing
left to peer into but cold gray shadow, which meant that the fairies and
othe