t through and through
with black, whirling balls. Where did it come from?

It stayed. And grew. Her eyes widened with wonderment. A smile curved
her lips.

Then suddenly she rose to a sitting posture, threw out both arms, and
gave a little choking cry.

CHAPTER VIII

It was a cry of amazement. For suddenly--so suddenly that she did not
have time to think how it had happened--she found herself _up and
dressed_, and standing alone, gazing about her, _in the open air!_

But there were no high buildings on any side, no people passing to and
fro, no motor-cars flashing by. And the grass underfoot was not the
grass of a lawn, evenly cut and flowerless; it was tall, so that it
brushed the hem of her dress, and blossom-dotted.

She looked up at the sky. It was not the sky of the City, distant, and
marbled with streaks of smoke. It was close and clear; starless, too;
and no moon hung upon it. Yet though it was night there was light
everywhere--warm, glowing, roseate.

By that radiant glow she saw that she was in the midst of trees! Some
were tall and slender and clean-barked; others were low and thick of
trunk, but with the wide shapely spread of the great banyan in her
geography; and, towering above the others, were the giants of that
forest, unevenly branched, misshapen, aslant, and rugged with wart-like
burls.

"Is--is this the Park?" she said aloud, still looking around. "Or--or
the woods across the River?"

But there was no sign of a paved walk, such as traced patterns through
the Park; nor of a chimney, to mark the whereabouts of a house. Behind
her the ground sloped gently up to a wooded rise; in front of her it
sloped as gently down to the edge of a narrow, noisy mountain stream.

"Why, I'm at Johnnie Blake's!" she cried--then glanced over a shoulder
cautiously. If this were indeed the place she had longed to revisit, it
would be advisable to keep as quiet as possible, lest someone should
hear her, and straightway come to take her home.

Still watching backward apprehensively, she pushed through the grass to
the edge of the stream.

The moment she reached it she knew that it was not the trout-stream
along which she had wandered while her father fished. It was, in fact,
not ordinary water at all, but something lighter, more sparkling with
color, swifter, and louder. It effervesced, so that a creamy mist lay
along its surface--this the smoke of bursting bubbles. It was like the
bottled water she dra