nor
grow aware of their presence.

She was a slender little shape, lying there on the fresh grass--a thin
child, with a pale face and black hair braided away from it; a child
who was not actually pretty, nor, to the eyes of the casual observer,
in any other way remarkable. But to Peter she seemed touched, for the
moment, with the glamour of enchantment, this small dreamer communing
with her fays.

"Don't speak to her!" he said again, as Ted moved restively. "She's as
far away as if she were in a different world," he added softly, and
only to himself.

But Ted, overhearing, nodded comprehendingly. "Sheila does make you
feel like that sometimes, even if she _is_ standing right by you all
the time. She's queer--Sheila is. But," and he spoke boastfully,
though still in the cautious undertone Peter had used, "but I always
call her back!"

Peter looked down at him, at the frank, wholesome, unimaginative face,
fatuous now with the vanity of power.

"_I_ always call her back!" the boy repeated proudly.

"Yes," said Peter slowly, "you--and people like you--will always call
her back. But not this time, Ted--not this time. I'll help you with
your rhetoric myself. Sheila has better things to think of just now."
And putting his hands on the boy's shoulders, he turned him about for
retreat.

It occurred to Peter then that he was fulfilling Mrs. Caldwell's trust,
but he shook his head dubiously, nevertheless. He had saved one dream,
but--the future was long and the people like Ted were many and
intrepid. Suddenly he saw what life might do to a being like Sheila
and something of the fear and tenderness that Mrs. Caldwell had felt
smote upon his heart.

CHAPTER II

It was on a Saturday of late October that it happened--the adventure
which, in after years, Sheila was to see as so significant.

Sheila and Ted had gone to the woods with a nutting-party--a party too
merry to do much but frolic, and eat as they gathered. By afternoon
their baskets were not nearly full, and Ted surveyed his own with
chagrin. He liked to accomplish what he set out to do, not because he
was particularly industrious, but because a sense of power within him,
partly sheer physical vigor and partly a naturally dominant will,
demanded deeds for its satisfaction. If he could stay an hour longer,
if he could go a little deeper into the woods, he could fill his
basket, he reflected; whereas now--and he looked with contempt and a
genuin