wizard the farther he penetrated into the Enchanted Forest. He was
saying things that would have embarrassed him very much had they been
said in the Piccadilly Restaurant, even after three glasses of
champagne. For this reason, although the borders of the Enchanted Forest
are said to be widening, it is to be hoped that they will not encroach
beyond the confines of the Parish of Faery. What would happen if its
trees began to seed themselves in the Strand? Imagine the Stock Exchange
under the shadow of an enchanted oak, and the consequent disastrous
wearing thin of the metal casing in which all good business men keep
their souls.

Sarah Brown thought if rather a curious coincidence that so soon after
they had spoken of the dead Keats they should see him alive. They saw
him framed in a little pale aisle of the Forest, a faintly defined
fragile ghost, crouched against the trunk of a tree, bent awkwardly into
an attitude of pain forgotten and ecstatic attention. It was his dearest
moment that they saw, a moment without death. For he was a prisoner in
a perfect spell; he was utterly entangled in the looped and ensnaring
song of a nightingale. The song was like beaten gold wire. Never again
in her life did Sarah Brown profane with her poor voice the words that a
perfect singer begot in a marriage with a perfect song. But in
unhappiness, and in the horrible nights, the song came to her,
always....

The travellers were approaching the end of the Green Ride, but that did
not matter to Sarah Brown, for there had been nothing lacking all the
way.

"Love----," began Richard in a loud exalted voice, and then suddenly a
searchlight glared diagonally across the end of the Ride, over Mitten
Island, and quenched the magic of the moment.

"Sorry," said Richard. "I thought I was talking to my True Love."

"I'm sorry you weren't," said Sarah Brown, as they emerged from the
Forest. "I mean, I'm sorry it was only me you were talking to."

CHAPTER VIII

THE REGRETTABLE WEDNESDAY

"What a very singular thing," said the Mayor, meeting the witch
towards three o'clock in the afternoon, as she came down the Broad Walk
towards Kensington, having slept invisibly among the daffodils for
nearly twelve hours. "A really very singular thing. 'Tisn't once in five
years I visit these parts, and now I'm here I meet the very person I was
thinkin' about." He winked.

"It's almost like magic, isn't it," said the witch, winking busily in
retu