's like a
part of the enchantment; and if we had been in the maze of the Minotaur,
without Ariadne's clue, we couldn't have been more bewildered than we
soon found ourselves, tangled in the veil of twilight.

"I wonder if birds will cover us with leaves?" I said, laughing, when we
had made up our minds that we were lost. But it seemed more likely that,
if any creature paid us this thoughtful attention, it would be bats. As
night fell in the Forest, they unhooked themselves from their mysterious
trapezes, and whirred past our faces with a soft flap, flap of velvet
wings. I don't know what I should have done if one had made a
halfway-house of my hair!

"Are you hungry?" Sir Lionel wanted to know.

I said that I was, but wouldn't harrow him up by explaining that I was
ravenous.

He didn't appear even to _want_ to scold, though it would have been easy
to hint politely that it would be my own fault if we didn't get any
dinner that night--or, perhaps, breakfast next morning. Instead of being
cross with me, he blamed himself for being stupid enough to lose me. I
exonerated him, and we were extremely nice to each other; but as we
walked on and on, round and round, seeing no lights anywhere, or hearing
anything except that wonderful sound of a great silence, I began to grow
tired. I didn't mean, though, that he should see it. _I_ had enough to
be ashamed of, without that, but he knew by instinct, and took my hand
to draw it through his arm, telling me to lean as heavily as I liked. I
held back at first, saying it wasn't necessary; and insisting, as I
pulled away, his hand closed down on mine tightly. It was only for a
second or two, because I gave up at once, and let him lay my hand on his
arm as he wished. But, do you know, mother, I think I ought to tell you
it felt quite differently from any other hand that ever touched mine.

Of course I haven't even shaken hands with many men since I've been
grown up, though if you'd let me be a singer I shouldn't have thought
any more about it than if I were President of the United States. One
reads in novels of "the electricity in a touch," and all that; but
there it generally means that you're falling in love. And I can't
possibly be falling in love with Ellaline's Dragon, can I? I don't
suppose that can be. It would be too stupid, and forward, and altogether
unspeakable. But really, I do feel differently about him from any way I
ever felt before toward anybody. I have always said t