r heart's desire.

She was especially clear about this on the frequent occasions when she
would come into the room where her mother was sitting, and plump down
upon a chair with a heart-rending sigh, and say, "I wish I had
somebody to play with!"

For then her dear but most contrary mother would glance up from her
book or her darning and remark, with a calm smile,

"When I was a little girl--"

"Ah!"

"I used to go inside my head and play."

And Sara would answer with a poor, vindictive satisfaction, "There's
nothing in my head to play with!"

And her kind-hearted mother would snip off her thread and say gently,
in a tone of polite regret, "Poor little girl!"

Then Sara would gnash the little milk-teeth of her mind and have awful
thoughts. The worst she ever had came one day when Mother, who had
already filled about fourteen pages of paper with nothing in the world
but words, acted that way again. And just as she said, "Poor little
girl!" Sara thought, "I'd like to take that sharp green pencil and
stick it into Mother's forehead, and watch a story run out of her head
through the hole!"

But that was such an awful thought that she sent it scurrying away, as
fast as she could. Just the same, she said to herself, if Mother ever
acted that way again--

And, after all, Mother did. And that was the fatal time--the
four-thousand-and-fourth. For, after Mother had suggested it four
thousand and four times, it suddenly occurred to Sara that she might
try it.

So she shut the doors and went in.

Yes, I said shut the doors and went in; for that is what you do when
you go into your head. The doors were of ivory, draped with tinted
damask curtains which were trimmed with black silk fringe. The curtains
fell noiselessly behind Sara as she entered.

And there in the Gugollaph-tree by the pool sat the Plynck, gazing
happily at her Echo in the water.

She was larger than most Plyncks; about the size of a small peacock.
Of course you would know without being told that her plumage was of a
delicate rose color, except for the lyre-shaped tuft on the top of her
head, which was of the exact color and texture of Bavarian cream. Her
beak and feet were golden, and her eyes were golden, too, and very
bright and wild. The wildness and brightness of her eyes would have
been rather frightening, if her voice, when she spoke, had not been so
soft and sweet.

"I think a little girl has forgotten something," she said gently,
lookin