ed when the dawn passed over London, and the sun
came up, the seed of another day, sown in a rich red soil. The trees of
the Gardens remembered their daylight shadows again, and forgot their
mystery. The water-birds, after examining their shoulder-blades with
minute care for some moments, launched themselves upon a lake of
diamonds. There seemed a veil of mist and bird-song over the world. The
sudden song of the birds was like finding the hearing of one's heart
restored, after long deafness.

The witch anointed her shoulder with the charm, after having first made
a drop of potion out of the bubbles in it. This potion she drank, and
was healed of her wound and her weariness, and of all desires except a
desire to sleep with her face among the daffodils. She was the most
beautifully alone person in the world that morning; nobody could have
found her. A thin string of very blue smoke went up from her faint fire
and was tangled among the boughs of a flowering tree, but the coarse eye
of a park-keeper could never have seen it. She had escaped from the net
of the cruel hours; for her the stained world was washed clean; for her
all horror held its breath; for her there was absolute spring, and an
innocent sun, and the shadows of daffodils upon closed eyes....

CHAPTER VII

THE FAERY FARM

Sarah Brown, finding herself unfetched by the witch, went home alone
as soon as the 'buses began putting out to sea after the storm. She
expected to find the witch at home, but only the Dog David and Peony
were in the House of Living Alone. David lay on Peony's bed, and Peony
under it. Sarah Brown saw them as she passed their open door.

"Ow Marmaduke!" said Peony, "is it all over? Are you sure? Them 'uns is
so bloody deceitful you never know but what they might go an' blow a
bugle or two to mike believe they'd done, an' then drops bombs on us
just as we was comin' 'appily out from under our beds."

Peony, with a touching faith in the combined protective powers of twelve
inches of mattress and nine inches of dog, had been reading a little
paper book called _Love in Society_ by the light of an electric torch.

"It's all truly over," said Sarah Brown, who had come home through a
roar of rumour. "They say we've brought down at least one Boche. In fact
the ferryman says his aunt telephoned that the special on her corner
says a female Boche was brought down. But that hardly sounds likely.
Hasn't the witch come home yet?"

"Lawd no,