ed aside the undergrowth before her,
lifted her gently over damp hollows, and led her around the stones.

At last they came to the woods that opened out upon the upper river
road, where she had stood the day she had been splashed with mud from
Anthony Dexter's wheels, and, at the same instant, had heard the
mysterious flutings from afar. They entered near the hill to which her
long wandering had led her, and at the foot of it, the Piper paused.

"You'll have no fear, I'm thinking, since the moon makes the clearing
as bright as day, and I'll not be letting you out of my sight. I have
a fancy to stand upon yonder level place and call you as I called you
once before. Only, this time, the heart of me will dance to my own
music, for I know you'll be coming all the while I play."

He left her and clambered up the hill to the narrow ledge which sloped
back, and was surrounded with pines. He kept in the open spaces, so
that the moonlight was always upon him, and she did not lose sight of
him more than once or twice, and then only for a moment. The hill was
not a high one and the ascent was very gradual. Within a few minutes,
he had gained his place.

Clear and sweet through the moonlit forest rang out the pipes o' Pan,
singing of love and joy. Never before had the Piper's flute given
forth such music as this. The melody was as instinctive as the
mating-call of a thrush, as crystalline as a mountain stream, and as
pure as the snow from whence the stream had come.

Evelina climbed to meet him, her face and heart uplifted. The silvery
notes dropped about her like rain as she ascended, strangely glad and
strangely at peace. When she reached the level place where he was
standing, his face illumined with unspeakable joy. He dropped his
flute and opened his arms.

"My Spinner in the Sun," he whispered, "I called you, and you came."

"Yes," she answered, from his close embrace, "you called me, and I have
come--for always."

At last, he released her and they stood facing each other. The Piper
was stirred to the depths of his soul. "Last night I dreamed," he
said, "and 't was the dream that brought me back. It was a little
place, with a brook close by, and almost too small to be called a
house, but 'twas a home, I'm thinking, because you were there. It was
night, and I had come back from making the world a bit easier for some
poor woman-soul, and you were standing in the door, waiting.

"The veil was gone, and th