fore. It seemed to make me sad and
restless,--wishing for something, I knew not what,--longing to see the
world and to taste happiness before I must sleep beneath the elm-tree.
Then I looked off to the blue hills, shadowy and dream-like, the
boundary of the little world that I knew. And there, in a cleft between
the highest peaks I saw a wondrous thing: for the place at which I was
looking seemed to come nearer and nearer to me; I saw the trees, the
rocks, the ferns, the white road winding before me; the enfolding hills
unclosed like leaves, and in the heart of them I saw a Blue Flower, so
bright, so beautiful that my eyes filled with tears as I looked. It was
like a face that smiled at me and promised something. Then I heard a
call, like the note of a trumpet very far away, calling me to come. And
as I listened the flower faded into the dimness of the hills."

"Did you follow it," asked Ruamie, "and did you go away from your home?
How could you do that?"

"Yes, Ruamie, when the time came, as soon as I was free, I set out on
my journey, and my home is at the end of the journey, wherever that may
be."

"And the flower," she asked, "you have seen it again?"

"Once again, when I was a youth, I saw it. After a long voyage upon
stormy seas, we came into a quiet haven, and there the friend who was
dearest to me, said good-by, for he was going back to his own country
and his father's house, but I was still journeying onward. So as I stood
at the bow of the ship, sailing out into the wide blue water, far away
among the sparkling waves I saw a little island, with shores of silver
sand and slopes of fairest green, and in the middle of the island the
Blue Flower was growing, wondrous tall and dazzling, brighter than the
sapphire of the sea. Then the call of the distant trumpet came floating
across the water, and while it was sounding a shimmer of fog swept over
the island and I could see it no more."

"Was it a real island," asked Ruamie. "Did you ever find it?"

"Never; for the ship sailed another way. But once again I saw the
flower; three days before I came to Saloma. It was on the edge of the
desert, close under the shadow of the great mountains. A vast loneliness
was round about me; it seemed as if I was the only soul living upon
earth; and I longed for the dwellings of men. Then as I woke in the
morning I looked up at the dark ridge of the mountains, and there
against the brightening blue of the sky I saw the Blue Flow