hey danced around by themselves, moving in
and out among the others, no matter how close together they were, and
always finding their way, now in the midst of the whole company and
now out beyond the very edge of it, and then suddenly all the dancers
would join hands and whirl about in a great circle, so fast that
Kathleen could not tell whether her feet were touching the ground at
all.

It seemed to her that she had never done anything so delightful
before. She did not think of going on with the other girls any more.
She did not think of getting home early, or of anything but the
dancing. She could not tell at all how long she had been dancing, but
it was all dark, except for the little lanterns and the little lights
on the flower-stems, and the stars were all out in the sky. And then
somebody said: "It is time to go."

The man who had been dancing with Kathleen whispered to her: "You are
to go with us."

And Kathleen thought of nothing but of going with the queer little old
men and the beautiful little girls. They all left the shell-shaped
grass-plot and moved along together--Kathleen could scarcely tell even
now whether her feet were on the ground or not--over the grass, till
they came to a little pool of water--Kathleen's own little pool.

She looked down into it, and there was no doubt about the stars now.
There were hundreds of them down under the water, shining up through
it from as far below, it seemed, as the stars in the sky were up
above. The dancers who came to it first stepped on the surface of the
pool, and it bore them up as if it had been a floor of glass. Then
Kathleen saw that the rocks behind the pool were not as she had ever
seen them before. There was an opening straight into the hill, and
when she came nearer still she saw that the water was no longer a
little pool. It was more like a long, narrow lake, and it covered the
bottom of the opening that led into the hill. All the people were
going in, walking along the path of water as easily as if it had been
a path of ice.

Again it seemed to Kathleen that she ought to be afraid, and again it
seemed to her, still more clearly, that she was not afraid. When she
came to the water she put her foot upon it and walked along it as
easily as the others were doing. She thought that she would remember
that this water could be walked on, and would try it the next day. She
had never thought of trying it before.

But now she and the others were moving alo