h form of the baby
otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid
on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he
lived, he wondered.

'Rat!' he found breath to whisper, shaking. 'Are you afraid?'

'Afraid?' murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.
'Afraid! Of HIM? O, never, never! And yet--and yet--O, Mole, I am
afraid!'

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did
worship.

Sudden and magnificent, the sun's broad golden disc showed itself over
the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level
water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When
they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air
was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.

As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised
all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze,
dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the
dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its
soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift
that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has
revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest
the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and
pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives
of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should
be happy and lighthearted as before.

Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in
a puzzled sort of way. 'I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?' he
asked.

'I think I was only remarking,' said Rat slowly, 'that this was the
right sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him. And
look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!' And with a cry of delight he
ran towards the slumbering Portly.

But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly
from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture
nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too,
fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold
waking and all its penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his memory
for a brief space, shook his head sadly and followed the Rat.

Portly woke up with a joyous squeak, and wriggled with pleasure at the
sight of h