rd at mine. However, as I padded, I suddenly felt
return that strength of ten women which I had put from me the morning I
fled from the empty Elmnest, and I knew that it had come upon me to abide.

I needed every bit of the energy of ten ordinary women to keep up with
Pan's commands, as I helped him make camp beside a cool spring that bubbled
out of a rock in a little cove that was swung high up on the side of
Paradise Ridge. I washed the bundle of greens he had brought to the wedding
and set them to simmer with the inevitable black walnut kernels in a pot
that he produced from under a log in the edge of the woods, along with a
couple of earthen bowls like the ones he kept secreted in the spring-house
at Elmnest.

"Got 'em all over ten States," he answered, as I questioned him with
delight at the presence of our old friends. Then while I crouched and
stirred, he took his long knife out, cut great armfuls of cedar boughs,
threw them in a shadow at the foot of a tall old oak, and with a bundle of
sticks swept upon them a great pile of dry leaves into the form of a huge
nest. The golden glow was just fading as I lifted the pot and poured his
portion in his bowl, then mine in the other, while he cut the black loaf he
had taken from his bundle into hunks with his knife. It was after seven
o'clock, and the crescent moon hung low by the ridge, waiting for the sun
to take its complete departure before setting in for its night's joy-ride
up the sky. It was eight before Pan finished his slow browsing in his bowl
and came over to crouch with me out on the ledge of rock that overlooked
the world below us. Clusters of lights in nests of gray smoke were dotted
around over the valley, and I knew the nearest one was Riverfield; indeed I
could see a bunch of lights a little way apart from the rest, and I felt
sure that they were lighting the remaining revelers at my wedding-feast at
Elmnest. The Golden Bird had gone sensibly to roost on one of the low
limits of the old oak, and he reminded me of the white blur of Polly's
wedding bell, which I had caught a glimpse of as I ran through the hall at
Elmnest.

"_I am thy child_," crooned Pan, with a new note to his chant that
immediately started on my heartstrings. "And I'm tired," he added as he
stretched himself on the rock beside me, laid his head on my breast, and
nuzzled his lips into my bare throat.

"I'm going to lift the crests and look at the tips of your ears, Pan," I
said as I h