dim with crying, but later with a clear brilliance that filled Jimbo and
the governess with keen pleasure. The air was washed and perfumed; the
night luminous, alive, singing. All its tenderness and passion entered
their hearts and filled them with the wonder of its glory.

"Come down, Jimbo," said the governess, "and we'll lie in the trees and
smell the air after the rain."

"Yes," added the boy, whose Older Self had been whispering mysterious
things to him, "and watch the stars and hear them singing."

He led the way to some beech trees that lined a secluded lane, and
settled himself comfortably in the top branches of the largest, while
the governess soon found a resting-place beside him. It was a deserted
spot, far from human habitation. Here and there through the foliage they
could see little pools of rain-water reflecting the sky. The group of
trees swung in the wind, dreaming great woodland dreams, and overhead
the stars looked like a thousand orchards in the sky, filling the air
with the radiance of their blossoms.

"How brilliant they are to-night," said the governess, after watching
the boy attentively for some minutes as they lay side by side in the
great forked branch. "I never saw the constellations so clear."

"But they have so little shape," he answered dreamily; "if we wore
lights when we flew about we should make much better constellations than
they do."

"The Big and Little Child instead of the Big and Little Bear," she
laughed, still watching him.

"I'm slipping away----" he began, and then stopped suddenly. He saw the
expression of his companion's eyes, which were looking him through and
through with the most poignant love and yearning mingled in their gaze,
and something clutched at his heart that he could not understand.

"----not slipping out of the tree," he went on vaguely, "but slipping
into some new place or condition. I don't understand it. Am I--going off
somewhere--where you can't follow? I thought suddenly--I was losing
you."

The governess smiled at him sadly and said nothing. She stroked his
wings and then raised them to her lips and kissed them. Jimbo watched
her, and folded his other wing across into her hands; he felt unhappy,
and his heart began to swell within him; but he didn't know what to say,
and the Older Self began slowly to fade away again.

"But the stars," he went on, "have they got things they send out
too--forces, I mean, like the trees? Do they send out someth