with a poet
on my hands? I tell you, I'm not wise enough to--to trim the wick of a
star!"

"Well," he suggested comfortably, "she may not be a poet. What makes
you think she's likely to be?"

"You know how she reads--quite beyond the ordinary little girl's
appreciation?"

"Yes--but she may have an extraordinary mind without being a genius of
any sort. And I'm responsible for her reading. It isn't so precocious
after all. I've just given her simple, beautiful things instead of
simple, silly ones."

"But, Peter, I've another reason besides her reading. She goes off by
herself and sits brooding--dreaming--for hours at a time. I've come on
her unexpectedly once or twice and she didn't even realize that I was
there--she was so rapt. She looked as if she were seeing visions!"

"Perhaps she was," said Peter softly. "I've seen visions in my time,
and I'm no poet. Haven't you--when you were as young as Sheila?
Confess now--haven't you?"

But Mrs. Caldwell resolutely shook her head: "Not like Sheila does.
And neither have you, Peter. Sheila is different from you and me. You
know her mother was Irish--full of whimsical fancy and quaint
superstitions."

"Ah, I had forgotten about her mother."

"Of course. You were only a boy when she died." And her eyes filled
with slow, remembering tears as she went on, "She always believed in
fairies--even when she was face to face with a reality like death. And
Sheila believes in them, too, though her mother didn't live long enough
to tell her about them. She never says anything about it, but I know
that she has a whole world which I can't share--the dream-world her
mother bequeathed to her."

"But that's beautiful!" cried Peter.

"Yes," she admitted, "it's beautiful. But, Peter, it's sad for me
because--because I can't follow her there."

She fell silent for a moment, her eyes wistful and anxious; and
suddenly he saw the pathos of age in her face as well as its finely
tempered beauty, the pathos of all the closed doors that would open no
more--among them the door of fairyland.

"It's true," she said bravely, as if they had looked at those closed
doors together and she were answering his thought. "I'm an old woman
and I've lost the way to fairyland. So I want you to go with Sheila in
my place. I want you to guard her dream--and keep _her_ safe, too.
I'm afraid for her, Peter--I'm afraid!"

"Dear Mrs. Caldwell, how can I walk where your foot is too heavy?" A