ou want that you lack?"

And a voice from the south murmured, "What is the wish of your heart?"

And a voice from the west sighed, "What is it that life has not given
you?"

And a voice from the east shrieked, "What will you have, and lose
yourself to have?"

And Hobb forgot his brothers and why he was there, he forgot everything
but the dream of his soul which had been churned uppermost in that
turmoil, and he cried aloud, "A golden rose!"

Then the four voices together roared and murmured and sighed and
shrieked, "Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins! Open Winkins!" And
the tumult ceased with a shock, and the shock of silence overwhelmed
Hobb with sickness and darkness, and his senses deserted him. As he
became unconscious he seemed to be, not falling to earth, but rising in
the air.

When he opened his eyes he was lying on his back in a strange world, a
world of trees, whose noble trunks rose up as though they were columns
of the sky, but their heaven was a green one, shutting out daylight,
yet enclosing a luminous haunted air of its own. Such forests were
unknown in Hobb's open barren land, and this alone would have made his
coming to his senses appear rather to be a coming away from them. But
he scarcely noticed his surroundings, he was only vaguely aware of them
as the strange and beautiful setting of the strangest and most
beautiful thing he had ever seen. For he was looking into the eyes of
the loveliest woman in the world. She was bending above him, tall and
slim and supple, her perfect body clad in a deep black gown, the hem
and bosom of which were embroidered with celandines, and it had a
golden belt and was lined with gold, as he could see when the loose
sleeves fell open on her round and slender arms; and the bodice of the
gown hung a little away from her stooping body, and was embroidered
inside, as well as outside, with celandines, which made reflections on
her white neck, as they will on a pure pool where they lean to watch
their April loveliness. Her skin was as creamy as the petals of a
burnet rose, and her eyes were the color of peat-smoke, and her hair
was as soft as spun silk and fell in two great shining waves of the
purest gold over her bosom as she bent above him, and lay on the earth
like golden grass on green water. A tress of the hair had flowed across
his hand. And about her small fine head it was bound with a black
fillet, a narrow coil so sleek and glossy that it was touched with