ill it be?" she asked.

"One day," he said. And that contented her.

He then carried her into the shed, and she looked around eagerly to see
what a palace might be like inside; and it was full of flickering
lights and shadows and the scent of burning wood, and she did not see
how poor and dirty the room was; for the firelight gleamed upon a mass
of golden fruit and silver bloom embroidered on the covering of the
settle by the hearth, and sparkled against a silver and crystal lantern
hanging in the chimney. And between the cracks on the walls Young
Gerard had stuck wands of gold and silver palm and branches of snowy
blackthorn, and on the floor was a dish full of celandine and daisies,
and a broken jar of small wild daffodils. And the child knew that all
these things were the treasures of queens and kings.

"Why don't you have that?" she asked, pointing to the crystal lantern
as Young Gerard set down his horn one.

"Because I can't light it," said he.

"Let ME light it!" she begged; so he fetched it from its nail, and
thrust a pine twig in the fire and gave her the sweet-smoking torch.
But in vain she tried to light the wick, which always spluttered and
went out again. So seeing her disappointment Young Gerard hung the
lantern up, saying, "Firelight is prettier." And he set her by the fire
and filled her lap with cones and dry leaves and dead bracken to burn
and make crackle and turn into fiery ferns. And she was pleased.

Then he looked about and found his own wooden cup, and went away and
came back with the cup full of milk, set on a platter heaped with
primroses, and when he brought it to her she looked at it with shining
eyes and asked:

"Is this the feast?"

"That's it," said Young Gerard.

And she drank it eagerly. And while she drank Young Gerard fetched a
pipe and began to whistle tunes on it as mad as any thrush, and the
child began to laugh, and jumped up, spilling her leaves and primroses,
and danced between the fitful lights and shadows as though she were,
now a shadow taken shape, and now a flame. Whenever he paused she
cried, "Oh, let me dance! Don't stop! Let me go on dancing!" until at
the same moment she dropped panting on the hearth and he flung his pipe
behind him and fell on his back with his heels in the air, crying,
"Pouf! d'you think I've the four quarters of heaven in my lungs, or
what?" But as though to prove he had yet a capful of wind under his
ribs, he suddenly began to sing a song