d absent-minded and wistful.

"It didn't stick," she said.

"What didn't?" asked Sara. Her words may not sound very polite; but if
you could have heard the awe and wonder in her little voice you would
have pardoned her.

"The poem," said Avrillia. What was it her voice was like?
Sheep-bells? Sheep-bells, that was it. Sheep-bells across an English
down--at twilight! Sara had never seen more than three sheep in her
life; and those three didn't wear bells; and she had never heard of a
down. And yet, Avrillia's voice sounded to Sara exactly as I have
said.

Moreover, it drew Sara softly to her side. Her dress smelled like
isthagaria; and it was very soft to touch. For Sara touched it as
confidingly as she would her own mother's.

At that Avrillia seemed to remember her. Sara saw at once that
Avrillia never remembered anybody very long at a time. She was kind,
and her smile was entrancingly sweet; but her mind always seemed to be
on something else. Probably on her poetry, Sara decided.

Now, however, she remembered Sara, and asked, "Would you like to look
over?"

"What's down there?" Sara could not help asking.

"Nothing. Would you like to see it?"

Sara drew nearer the balustrade, full of awe, and uncertain whether
she wished to look or not. But presently curiosity got the better of
her, and she leaned over the balustrade and looked down into Nothing.
It was very gray.

"Do you throw your poems down there?" she asked of Avrillia, in
inexpressible wonder.

"Of course," said Avrillia. "I write them on rose-leaves, you know--"

"Oh, yes!" breathed Sara. She still thought she had never heard of
anything that sounded lovelier than poems written on rose-leaves.

"Petals, I mean, of course," continued Avrillia, "all colors, but
especially blue. And then I drop them over, and some day one of them
may stick on the bottom--"

"But there isn't any bottom," said Sara, lifting eyes like black
pansies for wonder.

"No, there's no real bottom," conceded Avrillia, patiently, "but
there's an imaginary bottom. One might stick on that, you know. And
then, with that to build to, if I drop them in very fast, I may be
able to fill it up--"

"But there aren't any sides to it, either!" objected Sara, even more
wonderingly.

Avrillia betrayed a faint exasperation (it showed a little around the
edges, like a green petticoat under a black dress). "Oh, these literal
people!" she said, half to herself. Then she continued, still