ted in a flashing mirror, stood an old man,
bending over a mahogany counter, while with delicate fingers he
rearranged a line of gallipots in a glass-covered case.

"Is--is he--"

The boy paused, and Tilda heard him gulp down something in his throat.

"Suppose," he whispered, "if--if it should be God?"

"Ga'r'n!" said Tilda, pulling herself together.

"You're sure it's only Prospero?" he asked, still in a whisper.

Before she could answer him--but indeed she could have found no answer,
never having heard of Prospero--the boy had dragged her forward and
thrust open one of the glass swing-doors. It was he who now showed the
courage.

"My lord!"

"Hey?" The old chemist looked up over his spectacles, held for an
instant a gallipot suspended between finger and thumb, and set it down
with nice judgment. He was extremely bald, and he pushed his spectacles
high up on his scalp. Then he smiled benevolently. "What can I do for
you, my dears?"

The boy stepped forward bravely, while Tilda--the game for once taken
out of her hands--could only admire.

"If you would tell us where the Island is--it is called Holmness--"

Tilda caught her breath. But the old chemist still bent forward, and
still with his kindly smile.

"Holmness?--an island?" he repeated in a musing echo. "Let me see--"

"We ain't _sure_ it's an island, sir," put in Tilda, plucking up her
courage a little.

"It will be in the Gazetteer, of course," said the old chemist with a
happy thought; "and you'll find that in the Free Library."

"Gazetteer"--"Free Library." To Tilda these were strange words--names
of wide oceans, perhaps, or of far foreign countries. But the boy
caught at the last word: he remembered Prospero's--

"Me, poor man, my library
Was dukedom large enough,"

And this made him more confident than ever.

"But why do you want to know?" the old chemist went on. "Is it home
lessons?"

"'E," said Tilda, indicating Arthur Miles, "'e wants to find a relation
'e's got there--a kind of uncle--in 'Olmness, w'ich is in the
Gazetteer," she repeated, as though the scent lay hidden in a nest of
boxes, "'w'ich is in the Free Library."

"If you don't mind waiting a moment, I'll take you there."

The children gasped.

He turned and trotted around the back of his mirrored screen.
They heard him call and announce to someone in the back parlour--but the
boy made sure that it was to Miranda in her inner cave--that he was
going