nk at her nursery meals!

Hands clasped, she leaned to stare down. "Isn't it _funny!_" she
exclaimed half under her breath.

A voice answered her--from close at hand. It was a thin, cracked voice.
"This is where They get their soda-water," it said.

She turned, and saw him.

He was a queer little old thick-set, dark-skinned gentleman, with
grizzled whiskers, a ragged hat and baggy trousers. His eyes were round
and black under his brows, which were square and long-haired, and not
unlike a certain new hand-brush that Jane wielded of a morning across
Gwendolyn's small finger-tips. Over one shoulder, by a strap, hung a
dark box, half-hidden by a piece of old carpet. In one hand he held a
huge, curved knife.

Though she could not remember ever having seen him at Johnnie Blake's;
and though the curved knife was in pattern the true type of a
kidnaper's weapon, and the look out of those round, dark eyes, as he
strode toward her, was not at all friendly, she did not scamper away.
She waited, her heart beating hard. When he halted, she curtsied.

"I've--I've always wondered about soda-water," she faltered, trying to
smile. "But when I asked--"

"Um!" he grunted; then, with a sidewise jerk of the head, "Take a
drink."

She lifted eager eyes. "All I _want_ to?" she half-whispered.

He nodded. "Sip! Lap! Tipple!"

"Oo!" Fairly beaming with delight, she knelt down. For the first time in
her life she could have all the soda-water she wanted!

First, she put the tip of one finger into the rushing sparkle, slowly,
to lengthen out her joy. Next, with a little laugh, she sank her whole
hand. Bubbles formed upon it,--all sizes of them--standing out like
dewdrops upon leaves. The bubbles cooled. And tempted her thirst. With a
deep breath, she bent forward until her red mouth touched the shimmering
surface. Thus, lying prone, with arms spread wide, she drank deep of the
flow.

When she straightened and sat back upon her heels, she made an
astonishing discovery: The trees that studded the slope were not covered
with leaves, like ordinary trees! Each branched to hold lights--myriads
of lights! Some of these shone steadily; others burned with a hissing
sound; others were silent enough, but rose and fell, jumped and
flickered. It was these countless lights that illumed the forest like a
pink sun.

She rose. There was wonder in the gray eyes. "Are these Christmas
trees?" she said. "Where am I?"

"You've had your soda-water," he