l how much fathers DO know?"

"Your mother was very lovely, Paul, and you look a little like her. But
her eyes and hair are darker than yours."

"My eyes are the same color as father's," said Paul, flying about the
room to heap all available cushions on the window seat, "but father's
hair is gray. He has lots of it, but it is gray. You see, father is
nearly fifty. That's ripe old age, isn't it? But it's only OUTSIDE he's
old. INSIDE he's just as young as anybody. Now, teacher, please sit
here; and I'll sit at your feet. May I lay my head against your knee?
That's the way my little mother and I used to sit. Oh, this is real
splendid, I think."

"Now, I want to hear those thoughts which Mary Joe pronounces so queer,"
said Anne, patting the mop of curls at her side. Paul never needed any
coaxing to tell his thoughts . . . at least, to congenial souls.

"I thought them out in the fir grove one night," he said dreamily. "Of
course I didn't BELIEVE them but I THOUGHT them. YOU know, teacher. And
then I wanted to tell them to somebody and there was nobody but Mary
Joe. Mary Joe was in the pantry setting bread and I sat down on the
bench beside her and I said, 'Mary Joe, do you know what I think? I
think the evening star is a lighthouse on the land where the fairies
dwell.' And Mary Joe said, 'Well, yous are de queer one. Dare ain't no
such ting as fairies.' I was very much provoked. Of course, I knew there
are no fairies; but that needn't prevent my thinking there is. You know,
teacher. But I tried again quite patiently. I said, 'Well then, Mary
Joe, do you know what I think? I think an angel walks over the world
after the sun sets . . . a great, tall, white angel, with silvery folded
wings . . . and sings the flowers and birds to sleep. Children can hear
him if they know how to listen.' Then Mary Joe held up her hands all
over flour and said, 'Well, yous are de queer leetle boy. Yous make
me feel scare.' And she really did looked scared. I went out then and
whispered the rest of my thoughts to the garden. There was a little
birch tree in the garden and it died. Grandma says the salt spray
killed it; but I think the dryad belonging to it was a foolish dryad who
wandered away to see the world and got lost. And the little tree was so
lonely it died of a broken heart."

"And when the poor, foolish little dryad gets tired of the world and
comes back to her tree HER heart will break," said Anne.

"Yes; but if dryads are fool