se he was a socialist. I
gather America is too full of Liberty to leave room for socialism, isn't
that so? My squirrel says there are only two parties in America,
Republicans and Sinners--at least I think that was what he said--and
anybody who belongs to neither of these parties is given penal servitude
for life. So I understood, but I may be wrong. I am not very good at
politics. Anyway, my squirrel had to leave the Home of Liberty and come
to England, so as to be able to say what he thought. I wish I were there
too. Sarah Brown, I don't yet know why you brought me here."

"I brought you here to escape the Law," said Sarah Brown.

"How d'you mean--escape the Law? Didn't you know that all magic lives
and thrives on the wrath of the Law? Have you forgotten our heroic
tradition of martyrdom and the stake? Isn't the world tame enough
already? What do you want Magic to become? A branch of the Civil
Service?"

"I spent all I had in bringing you here," said Sarah Brown. "I left all
I loved to bring you here. I am as if dead in England now. Nobody there
will ever think of me again, except as a thing that has been heard the
last of."

The witch looked kindly at her. "You know," she said, "when you first
told me to go away, after Harold made that bad landing on a policeman, I
thought perhaps you were a sort of cinema villainess, driving me away
from my house and heritage. At first I thought of arguing the matter,
but then I remembered that villains always have a rotten time, without
being bullied and persecuted by the rest of us. Besides solid things are
never worth fighting over. So I have been patient with you all this
time, and have fallen in courteously with all your fiendish plans--as I
thought--and now I am glad I was patient, for I see you meant well.
Dear Sarah Brown, you did mean well. How sad it is that people who have
once lived in the House of Living Alone can never make a success of
friendship. You say you left all you loved--what business have you with
love? Thank you, my dear, for meaning so well, and for these fair days
at sea. But I mustn't stay with you. I mustn't set foot on this land--I
can smell cleverness and un-magic even from here. I must go back to my
little Spring island, and my parish of Faery...."

"Ah, witch, don't leave me, don't leave me like this, ill and bewildered
and so far from home...."

"How can you ever be far from home, you, a dweller in the greatest home
of all. Did you think you h