thin
violet stalk of smoke went up.

Sarah Brown smelt the unmistakable sour smell of magic, and saw
soundless words moving Richard's little khaki moustache. Then she found
that she had disappeared.

She had never done this before, she had always been present to disturb
and interrupt herself. She had never seen the world before, except
through the little glazed peepholes, called eyes, through which her
everyday self rather wistfully believed that it could see. Now, of
course, she knew what seeing was, and for the first time she was aware
of the real sizes of things. Poor man measures all things by the size of
his own foot. He looks complacently at the print of his boot in the mud,
and notices that the ant which he crushed was not nearly as big as his
foot, therefore the ant does not matter to him. He also notices that
those same feet of his would not be able to walk to the moon within a
reasonable time, therefore the moon does not matter to him.

But Sarah Brown had disappeared, and therefore could not measure
anything. The spider strode from hill to hill, with the wind rushing
through the hair on his back. The blue sky was just a lampshade, clipped
on to the earth to shield it from the glare of the gods, beyond it was a
mere roof of eternity, pricked with a few billion stars to keep it well
ventilated.

Sarah Brown had for a while all the fun of being a god. She was nowhere
and she was everywhere. She could have counted the hairs on David's
head. The world waved like a flower upon a thin purple stalk of
smoke....

Her eyes began to see again. She was aware, of the hollowed tired eyes
of Richard fixed upon her. The dragon dawned once more upon her sight,
it was inquisitively watching developments, while pretending to claw a
weed or two out of a neighbouring bean-row.

The horizon was rusty with a rather heavy sunset. The fields were full
of twilight and empty of fairies.

Sarah Brown came to herself with a start, she was shocked to find that
she had opened her mouth to say something absolutely impossible to
Richard. David's chin was resting on her hand. Her side felt frozen and
dangerous but not painful.

"It didn't altogether answer," said Richard. "I'm afraid the wrapping
was a mistake. A spell of that strength ought to have set you dancing
in three minutes. I'll take you home on my horse. His name is Vivian."

The Horse Vivian, who was so white as to be almost phosphorescent in the
dusk, was now further