y of its
waters.

"I love to see the shine upon the river like that," said the Imp,
dreamily; "Auntie Lisbeth says it's the path that the Moon-fairies come
down by to bring you nice dreams when you've been good. I've got out
of bed lots of times an' watched an' watched, but I've never seen them
come. Do you think there are fairies in the moon, Uncle Dick?"

"Undoubtedly," I answered; "how else does it keep so bright? I used to
wonder once how they managed to make it shine so."

"It must need lots of rubbing!" said the Imp; "I wonder if they ever
get tired?"

"Of course they do, Imp, and disheartened, too, sometimes, like the
rest of us, and then everything is black, and people wonder where the
moon is. But they are very brave, these Moon-fairies, and they never
quite lose hope, you know; so they presently go back to their rubbing
and polishing, always starting at one edge. And in a little while we
see it begin to shine again, very small and thin at first, like a--"

"Thumb-nail!"

"Yes, just like a thumb-nail; and so they go on working and working at
it until it gets as big and round and bright as it is to-night."

Thus we walked together through a fairy world, the Imp and I, while
above the murmur of the waters, above the sighing of the trees, came
the soft, tremulous melody of the violins.

"I do wish I had lived when there were knights like Ivanhoe," burst out
the Imp suddenly; "it must have been fine to knock a man off his horse
with your lance."

"Always supposing he didn't knock you off first, Imp."

"Oh! I should have been the sort of knight that nobody could knock off,
you know. An' I'd have wandered about on my faithful charger, fighting
all sorts of caddish barons, and caitiffs, an' slaying giants; an' I'd
have rescued lovely ladies from castles grim--though I wouldn't have
put my arm round them, of course!"

"Perish the thought, my Imp!"

"Uncle Dick!" he said, insinuatingly, "I do wish you'd be the Black
Knight, an' let me be Ivanhoe."

"But there are no caitiffs and things left for us to fight, Imp, and no
lovely ladies to rescue from castles grim, alas!"

Now we had been walking on, drawn almost imperceptibly by the magic
thread of the melody, which had led us, by devious paths, to a low
stone wall, beyond which we could see the gleam of lighted windows and
the twinkle of fairy-lamps among the trees. And over there, amid the
music and laughter, was Lisbeth in all the glory of her b