And didn't you see a queer little elfin face peering at us around
that twisted gray trunk? But one can't be sure. Mortal eyesight is too
slow and clumsy a thing to match against the flicker of a pixy-litten
fire."

Hand in hand we wandered through that enchanted place, seeking the folk
of elf-land, "and heard their mystic voices calling, from fairy knoll
and haunted hill." Not till the fire died down into ashes did we leave
the grove. Then we found that the full moon was gleaming lustrously from
a cloudless sky across the valley. Between us and her stretched up a
tall pine, wondrously straight and slender and branchless to its very
top, where it overflowed in a crest of dark boughs against the silvery
splendour behind it. Beyond, the hill farms were lying in a suave, white
radiance.

"Doesn't it seem a long, long time to you since we left home this
afternoon?" asked the Story Girl. "And yet it is only a few hours."

Only a few hours--true; yet such hours were worth a cycle of common
years untouched by the glory and the dream.

CHAPTER XXIX. WE LOSE A FRIEND

Our beautiful October was marred by one day of black tragedy--the day
Paddy died. For Paddy, after seven years of as happy a life as ever
a cat lived, died suddenly--of poison, as was supposed. Where he had
wandered in the darkness to meet his doom we did not know, but in the
frosty dawnlight he dragged himself home to die. We found him lying
on the doorstep when we got up, and it did not need Aunt Janet's curt
announcement, or Uncle Blair's reluctant shake of the head, to tell us
that there was no chance of our pet recovering this time. We felt that
nothing could be done. Lard and sulphur on his paws would be of no use,
nor would any visit to Peg Bowen avail. We stood around in mournful
silence; the Story Girl sat down on the step and took poor Paddy upon
her lap.

"I s'pose there's no use even in praying now," said Cecily desperately.

"It wouldn't do any harm to try," sobbed Felicity.

"You needn't waste your prayers," said Dan mournfully, "Pat is beyond
human aid. You can tell that by his eyes. Besides, I don't believe it
was the praying cured him last time."

"No, it was Peg Bowen," declared Peter, "but she couldn't have bewitched
him this time for she's been away for months, nobody knows where."

"If he could only TELL us where he feels the worst!" said Cecily
piteously. "It's so dreadful to see him suffering and not be able to do
a single