immensely, yet there was an element of pathos through it all; he looked
so frail and delicate, like a fairy changeling, or some being of another
world. They wondered if he would ever be able to run about like other
children.

"Good-bye!" he said, when Lizzie, full of apologies and thanks, resumed
her charge. "Come again some time and play with me! I'm going home now
in my Cinderella coach to my Enchanted Palace. Take care of giants on
your way back. And don't talk to witches. I won't forget you."

"He's hugging his book," said Marjorie, as the girls stood waving a
farewell. "Isn't he just too precious for words?"

"Sweetest thing I've ever seen!" agreed Dona.

"Poor little chap! I wonder if he'll ever grow up," said Elaine
thoughtfully. "I wish we'd asked where he lives, and we might have sent
him some picture post cards."

"I'm afraid 'The Enchanted Palace' wouldn't find him," laughed Marjorie.
"We must try to come here another Wednesday."

But the next fortnightly half-holiday was wet, and after that the days
began to grow dark early, and Aunt Ellinor suggested other amusements
than walks on the cliffs, so for that term at any rate the girls did not
see Eric again. He seemed to have made his appearance suddenly, like a
pixy child, and to have vanished back into Fairyland. There was a link
between them, however, and some time Fate would pull the chain and bring
their lives into touch once more.

CHAPTER V

Autographs

The Brackenfielders, like most other girls, were given to fads. The
collecting mania, in a variety of forms, raged hot and strong. There
were the Natural History enthusiasts, who went in select parties,
personally conducted by a mistress, to the shore at low tide, to grub
blissfully among the rocks for corallines and zoophytes and spider crabs
and madrepores and anemones, to be placed carefully in jam jars and
brought back to the school aquarium. "The Gnats", as the members of the
Natural History Society were named, sometimes pursued their
investigations with more zeal than discretion, and they generally
returned from their rambles with skirts much the worse for green slime
and sea water, and boots coated with sand and mud, but brimming over
with the importance of their "finds", and confounding non-members by the
ease with which they rapped out long scientific names. Those who had
caught butterflies and moths during the summer spent some of their
leisure now in relaxing and setting the