—and then to see that the forest actually is marching up the sides of
her own fortress! Wouldn’t that be discouraging?

“But Xyntli is not discouraged. Not she! She calls up her fiery snakes
from below, and sends them crawling down the sides of the mountain,
while she stands on the top, waving her wonderful smoky veil, and urging
them on.

“Down they glide,—filling up the channels the streams have dug, hissing
with hatred as they swallow the streams themselves, and devouring the
advancing forest.

“At last the mountain stands once more, smooth and polished—the green
army driven back to the valley.

“Then Xyntli is satisfied, and cuddles down in her hollow for another
nap.

“It was during one of these naps—after it had lasted a very long
time—that the Bee Baby was born.

“Year after year, the forest had marched steadily on; so the people who
lived in the valley seldom thought how the snakes had come down and
driven it back in the old days. The very old people occasionally shook
their heads, and said: ‘When Xyntli wakens she will have her own.’ But
the young people didn’t listen, and followed the forest, building their
curious houses fairly upon the slope of the mountain.

“They were very strange houses indeed—a good deal like willow
bird-cages. In a snowstorm they would have been about as useful for a
house as a mosquito net for an overcoat. But there came never a
snowstorm; and the house where the Bee Baby lived was built of slender
branches of trees, set in the ground, side by side, and interwoven with
palm-fibre—the light glimmered through it in little flecks. The roof
went up to a point in the middle and sloped four ways. That was woven
even closer, of the palm leaves, so the rain couldn’t come through. The
house had only one room, and nearly the whole of one side was the
doorway—with the roof extended over it a little way, like an awning.
There was no floor but the earth, and no door. So, when the Bee Baby
woke in the morning, all he had to do was to rub his big brown eyes with
his little brown fists, and trot through the open doorway, to be in the
warm sunshine, where there wasn’t a fence nor a bar between him and the
whole enchanting world.

“There was no one to watch him very closely, either, because he had no
mother. He did have a father; but he spent a great deal of his time
driving a pair of drowsy oxen in a cart with two solid, wooden wheels.
Such a queer cart!

“Of course his father knew that one of the brown babies that played and
tumbled about in the village of bird-cage huts was his. But when babies
wear only their own shining skins to cover them, it isn’t easy for a
father who spends most of his time driving an ox-cart to pick out his
particular baby.”

“Not any clothes—didn’t they wear?” asked Pat.

“Most of the little children didn’t. A few of them—who were very
fashionable—wore one garment. It was a straight piece of cloth that
covered their plump little bodies in front; the ends were gathered up in
the back, and tied in a bow between the shoulders. It looked very
stylish—but the Bee Baby was more comfortable. Stand up a minute,
Kitten, and I’ll show you how it was.”

So the Kitten came and stood before her, and she showed them how the
fashionable little children dressed, using a piece of Chinese embroidery
for the straight piece of cloth. Then they settled down once more to
listen.

“If an owl had looked through a chink in the wall, very early one
morning, he might have seen the Bee Baby’s family—his aunts and his
grandmother and four or five brown babies and children—all asleep on
flat straw mats on the ground. But nobody but an owl could have counted
exactly how many there were, it was still so dark.

“Then the first sunbeam slipped in at a chink, and put its finger on one
of the poles in the side of the hut. It felt its way slowly down, until
it touched a small, dark heap at the foot of it.

“And that was the Bee Baby.

“He sat up on his mat and looked around him at the other heaps.

“Not one of them stirred; and that was pretty stupid.

“Then he saw something interesting; his own little foot with the sunbeam
resting on it, as he sat with his toes pointing straight up at the roof.
He looked at it for a moment, and frowned as if he were anxious. Then he
leaned forward and felt of it.

“It was a perfectly good foot; and feet are made to be walked on; and it
is much more amusing to be walking than sitting on a mat in a dusky hut
like a bird-cage. That, probably, is the idea that came into the Bee
Baby’s head when he found his foot was so satisfactory; and a big dimple
came in his cheek, but he didn’t make any noise.

“To get up, he rolled over on to his face and planted his feet firmly,
only when they were quite solid, lifting his hands from the ground. And
there he was, all dressed and ready to go out. He trotted over to the
doorway and stopped a minute, looking out.

“The hut stood on the edge of a grove of tall cocoanut trees. There were
bananas growing among them; and vines with gorgeous orange and red
flowers creeping everywhere. Black and spotted pigs ran grunting through
the vines and about the huts of the little village; it all looked clean
and fresh in the early sunlight. The Bee Baby’s was the last hut of the
village, at the edge of the grove, that stretched on beyond it, up the
slope of Xyntli’s mountain.

“When one is not much over two years old, one can’t think of everything,
and the Bee Baby didn’t notice that which the older people had been
watching for a month—Xyntli was awake!

“After a sleep of two hundred years—and more—one night she had stirred
and turned herself, shaking her mountain and the village on its slope.
The next morning a thin, gray streamer floated from the top of the cone;
and the old people said: ‘Xyntli’s veil! Oh, when she sees—’ And they
shook their heads.

“Since that day the veil had floated, sometimes like a broad banner,
then again Xyntli drew it in until it was gathered down inside. But yet,
she had not looked out and seen how the forests and streams were
defacing her mountain.

“And the Bee Baby didn’t look up at the great blue triangle. The kitchen
was at the right of the house; and he had a feeling that said:
‘Breakfast.’ So those good little feet carried him over to the big stone
where the women ground corn to make the flat cakes that he liked to
nibble with his brand-new teeth. The stone oven where they were baked
was there too; and the Bee Baby found some cakes lying on the
grinding-stone. He had to stand on his tiptoes and feel over the stone,
to find them; but he knew where to feel, and where to find a banana,
too. So why should he wake the cook?

“With the flat cakes in one hand and the bitten banana in the other, he
set out, following the level sunbeams into the green grove. He knew just
where he wanted to go, and trotted straight on until he came to an old
tree.

“If it had been a _tree_ that he was looking for, it wasn’t much to see.
It hadn’t a green leaf on it, and only a few scraggly branches. But he
was not a bird, nor a squirrel; he was a Bee Baby. And considered as a
beehive, it left nothing to wish for. There was the fine hollow trunk to
store the honey; and a round knot-hole near the ground, for the bees to
pass in and out, all day long, in sunshiny weather. And that funny brown
baby never seemed tired of watching them—hurrying off, and coming back
dusty with pollen, and with masses of it in the pockets on their legs,
or laden with clear, sweet honey. Sometimes a bee lit on his finger.
Then the wise baby sat quite still, and never brushed it off; so he
didn’t find out that it carried a needle in its tail—as sharp as its
temper. (But he was careless about letting the dimple come in his cheek.
It’s a wonder the bees didn’t fly in, it was so deep and red and sweet.)

“When the baby came to the tree this morning, even he could see that
something was different. The bees were not going about the business of
the day—gathering honey—in their usual orderly fashion. No, indeed! They
were running in and out of the knot-hole, helter-skelter; and such a
humming as there was inside the tree!

“He came close to the trunk to listen, and a gray cockatoo sat on a tree
near by and watched. And it’s a pity there was no one else to see what a
quaint little figure he was, with one arm clasping the tree-trunk, as
far as it would go, with a cake still grasped in his chubby hand, and
his ear pressed against the rough bark—listening—listening—

“‘Buzz-z-z-z,’ hummed the bees; and the baby listened, with lips
apart,—serious and wondering.

“Then that soulless cockatoo ‘squawked’ as if it were the funniest thing
in the world, and swung herself, head down, around the branch where she
had been sitting; and then worked her way into the next tree, clutching
the vines with beak or claw, squawking all the way. She had neither
manners nor dignity; and she was a grandmother, too.

“Her noise startled the Bee Baby so he toppled over; but he didn’t mind,
and sat where he fell, to finish his cake and to watch.

“The buzzing in the hive was louder now, and there were very few bees
outside. Then—all at once—they began to come out in numbers, and flew
wildly about before they collected on a low branch near by. You can’t
imagine how many there were—all in a dark cluster clinging to the vine.
The baby never had seen anything like it, and his eyes were round with
amazement. He got up from the hummock, to see more plainly.

“Perhaps because he disturbed them, as he came near, the whole mass rose
together in the air, and flew up a natural path through the forest. And
straight after them went the Baby!

“But it was not a fair race; for they had wings to fly, and several
thousand eyes apiece to see where they were going; and he had only his
two small feet to carry him, and his one pair of eyes to watch the bees.
So he couldn’t look where his feet were going; and the next thing that
happened—he tripped and fell on his nose.

“It didn’t hurt him, and he picked himself up; but the bees were gone,
and he could only follow on in the direction they had flown.

“He was such a baby, it isn’t likely he even remembered what he was
looking for; but there were other things to see beside bees; and a green
forest, with birds and monkeys and all kinds of little living creatures
in it, is a fine place to be in.

“So he strayed on, amusing himself in his baby way, until he had gone
really a considerable distance from the village, and was on a ridge of
high land that ran up the mountain.

“Suddenly, something was the matter with the ground, and try as he
would, he couldn’t stand up on it—it was swaying—and the forest was full
of strange noises; and a black cloud covered the sun so that it grew
dark all in a moment. The great trees groaned and waved their branches,
as if they too were trying to balance themselves on the rocking Earth.
Those that were young and supple held their own; but a few that were old
and dry fell crashing, and carried others down in their fall.

“But though the trees cried and shrieked in their distress and
amazement,—and the monkeys and birds too,—the Bee Baby never made a
sound. He lay pressed close against the ground in the awful darkness; as
chickens cower when the mother hen sees the hawk’s shadow, and sounds
her warning to them.

“He was like a little frightened animal, too, when the rocking stopped,
and the forest gradually grew quiet around him; and he crept along the
ground, through the green tangle, to where a tree had fallen against a
cleft in the rocky ledge, carrying a mass of vines down with it, and
making a sort of den or shelter.

“The brown baby crawled into the farthest corner, and huddled down close
under the rock, to wait helplessly for whatever was to come.”

The Princess paused. “Poor little soul!” said Phyllisy. “Please go on,
Dearie.” And after a moment, she began to speak again:—

“Of course you know—though the Bee Baby didn’t—what was making all this
disturbance; and if he hadn’t left home so early that morning, before
his people were awake, they wouldn’t have forgotten all about him. But
when they were awake, they found enough to think of in watching Xyntli.

“There stood the giant cone of the mountain, with the thin gray streak
of her veil floating from the top.

“It looked very peaceful.

“Suddenly—without further warning—Xyntli stood, straight and tall, in
the top of the mountain, borne up on the servant-winds that live with
her inside!

“Her veil wrapped her from head to foot, and its loose folds were blown
upward by the breath of the winds. Her hair streamed through its topmost
folds like gleaming flames; and the blue flashes that shot forth from
the veil might have been the anger that flared in her blue eyes when she
saw the outside of her mountain!

“Now, for the snakes!

“She gave a strange, wailing cry—like the wind, or flames rushing up the
black throat of the chimney—and down in the depths of the mountain her
fiery serpents came writhing out of their caverns, obedient to her call.
The blue cone and the whole countryside shuddered with their motion; and
as their hot breath scorched the inside of the mountain, thick black
smoke arose like thunderclouds, and blotted out the sun. Then the heads
of the fiery monsters peered over the rim at the mountain’s top, and
they came crawling, gliding down its sides.

“And the very fiercest, hungriest of them all was rushing straight to
the village of bird-cage huts, nestling in the hollow upon the slope of
the mountain!

“It was a splendid sight—the mighty cone, purple in the midday darkness,
with the green forest at its base, and the serpents, like rivers of
fire, pouring down its sides. Smoke and flame rose, streaming upward,
where they passed.

“And in the midst of the murky clouds, on the mountain-top, stood
Xyntli, beautiful exceedingly, in her iridescent, gray veil, with her
glittering, red-gold hair. Swaying lightly on the shoulders of her
servant-winds, waving her arms and crying, she urged on her fiery
snakes, that were to restore her kingdom to her as she would have
it—clean, smooth, unbroken;—the pattern of a perfect mountain!

“But the people in the village saw the terror, not the beauty; and they
thought only of their flight from it.

“They huddled the babies and the old people who couldn’t walk and their
few poor possessions onto the ox-carts. Some of them tried to drive the
spotted pigs before them; and any one who has tried to drive _one_ pig
(a plain one at that) can imagine how much confusion it made when there
were dozens and dozens. And it’s not to be wondered at, that the aunts
and the grandmother didn’t count correctly. So they didn’t miss the Bee
Baby until they were far away; and the body of Xyntli’s hideous snake
lay stretched across the blackened hollow where the little huts had
stood in the green grove.

  THEY THOUGHT ONLY OF THEIR FLIGHT
]

“There is a curious thing about a snake. It has a habit of slipping out
of its skin, and squirming away, leaving the old one behind, looking
quite like itself.

“Xyntli’s snakes were unusual in many ways; but in this they certainly
did something very like the rest of their tribe. When they had gone down
the mountains and filled up the hollows with their bodies, their fiery
hearts seemed to die out of them where they lay. One might think they
were asleep, or dead; but I believe it was only their cast-off skins
they left behind, while the real snakes stole back into the mountain, to
be ready when Xyntli wanted them again.”

“I believe it, too; that’s what they did,” said Pat.

“If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there always, when she called,” agreed
Phyllisy.

“It seems so to me,” said the Princess. Then she took up the story
again: “At last Xyntli stopped her wild motion and looked down on her
mountain.

“The snakes had done their work well this time. There were no hollows
left, and no green thing but one slender spur of forest, like a finger
pointing up the slope, and that was hardly worth noticing.

“The smoke was thin now, and blue. Xyntli stood, swaying softly on the
mountain-top. Then she sank slowly, drawing her veil after her. Now she
was nearly gone; now, only a gleam of her red hair flickered against the
sky; now—she was quite gone—

“When—suddenly she shot up, straight, towering above the cone, and flung
a long fold of her veil wide over the land; and from it fell a shower of
fine powder, soft as snow, that filled all the cracks and crevices and
covered the horrid bodies of the snakes, and choked every green thing
left in its track.

“Then—as suddenly—Xyntli vanished! and in her hollow mountain, slept
once more.”

The Princess’s voice died away in a hush that lasted a long moment, as
if some one really were sleeping.

Then Pat drew a deep breath: “Well! I should say! For pitysakes! I hope
she’s done mischief enough for once!”

“She didn’t mean it for mischief. She had to make the mountain clean,
didn’t she, Dearie? She couldn’t help it if they were in the way,” said
Miss Phyllisy, with the wise little mind the Princess loved in her,
clear and fair and earnest.

“But she wouldn’t be sorry,” Pat insisted.

“No; she went straight off to sleep,” Phyllisy admitted. “And that poor
little baby!—We’re ready to go on, Dearie, whenever you’re rested.”

And after a few minutes the Princess was ready also.

“There isn’t much that goes on on Mother Earth that the Star People
don’t know about,” she began, whisking them away to Starland without any
warning. “On clear nights, when they are standing still to be looked at,
they watch—and watch. And Old Sol keeps watch by day. So there is not
much that escapes them: certainly not Xyntli and her naps, and
particularly her wakings!

“She was a tantalizing person in this way: though they might look at her
naps—that were nothing to see but a place!—as much and as long as they
liked, no sooner was she fairly awake than the clouds would gather
thick, and the Star People had to seize every chance to look through
chinks. Any one who had a good sight had to tell it over to the others,
again and again. But they did have glimpses, and Sol too; and after it
was all over they could see what had been done. So they had a pretty
clear idea of her and her actions.”

Pat nodded her head, as if she had, too; but she didn’t speak.

“When Xyntli vanished in her mountain the sky was full of heavy clouds;
so when night came the Star People stationed themselves wherever there
seemed the chance for a tiny gap, through which they might look.

“Now, Old Sol dearly loved the Bee Baby; and he had told the Zodiac
People all about the quaint little child who was so happy by himself, in
the sunshine, watching the bees. So the Star People understood just what
Andromeda meant when she exclaimed, from her chink in the cloud:—

“‘The Bee Baby is left all alone by himself in that strip of forest on
the ridge!’

“‘Are you thure? I didn’t thee him,’ said Draco, at another chink.

“‘You’re always imagining things,’ said Orion.

“‘I didn’t imagine this,’ insisted Andromeda. ‘The light from Lady
Moon’s lantern shone through for a moment, and I saw him
plainly—standing in front of a dark hole in the rock. Then he ran back,
as if he were frightened.’

“‘Well, I’d like to know what his people are made of!’ said Cassiopeia.
‘They don’t deserve to have a child, if they can’t take better care of
him than that!’

“‘Maybe they aren’t so bad,’ said Hercules. ‘I don’t believe Xyntli
asked ’em which way they’d rather be chased out. When they saw those
snakes coming they hadn’t any time to go back for stray babies! I don’t
mind snakes, myself, big or little, but I want ’em cold! They are,
too—mostly.’

“‘Too what?’ asked Perseus.

“‘Cold,’ answered Hercules; ‘toads, too.’

“‘I thought you said you’d rather have them cold?’

“‘I would. And they are—mostly.’

“‘Then why did you say they were _too_ cold?’

“‘I didn’t. I want ’em that way. And they are, too.’

“‘But you’—

“‘There’s a conundrum about that,’ interrupted Orion. (He couldn’t stand
it, to have them go on arguing.) ‘I’ve forgotten what it is; but the
answer is: Because a hot snake is better than a cold hop.’

“‘Why! that isn’t it—at _all_!’ said Andromeda.

“‘I should think you were all cold snakes and toads yourselves!’ broke
in Cassiopeia, indignantly. ‘Arguing like that, with that poor child all
alone in the middle of desolation! What do you propose to do about it?’

“‘There isn’t anything we can do,’ said Cepheus. ‘It isn’t our place.’

“‘Xyntli is the one who ought to do something. She made all the
trouble,’ said Andromeda.

“‘Don’t you be so silly,’ said Cassiopeia. ‘This is a serious matter.’

“‘I thouldn’t like her to bring up _my_ child,’ said Draco. ‘The ’th too
exthitable.’

“‘We can decide about yours when you have one!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘Now,
who is going after that baby? Because I think they’d better be
starting.’

“‘What over the sun are you talking about?’ asked Orion. ‘Going where?’

“‘We are going to adopt that Bee Baby. If some one doesn’t start at
once, I shall go myself!’

“‘_Adopt the Bee Baby!_’ cried every one in chorus. They were too much
astounded to say anything original; they could only repeat her
words—though they knew it was rude.

“‘That was what I said,’ said Cassiopeia.

“‘But you can’t,’ said Orion. ‘No one ever thought of doing such a
thing. It isn’t the Rule of the Sky.’

“‘Do you know any Rule that _says_ we can’t?’ asked Cassiopeia.

“‘No,’ answered Orion; and that disposed of him.

“‘How could you take care of him?’ asked Perseus. ‘He’d keep getting
lost; and he mightn’t like it.’

“‘It’s a pity if I can’t take care of one small child, and make him
happy!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘I’ll learn.’

“‘Wouldn’t he just love to watch Sol’s bees!’ said Andromeda. ‘It would
be a good thing to have some one to watch them; there’s always such a
fuss when they swarm.’

“‘Yeth, indeed!’ said Draco. ‘Don’t you remember latht time?—when they
got away when no one wath notithing, and every one thought they were a
comet?’

“‘Yes,’ said Cassiopeia. ‘It might have made a great deal of trouble. I
think we really need him. I’m going now. Is any one coming with me?’

“‘_No!_’ exclaimed Cepheus. ‘I forbid it! I am your husband, Cassiopeia;
and I will be obeyed!’

“Every one looked at him—startled to hear him speak like that. He stood
holding up his sceptre in a magnificent attitude, and looked absolutely
majestic. Cassiopeia was too much astonished to speak for a moment, but
Andromeda slipped her fingers into his and laid her cheek against his
shoulder; and when he bent his head to listen to her pretty coaxing in
his ear, his crown tilted a trifle, and he looked like his usual,
cloudy-night self. So no one was surprised to hear him say:—

“‘Yes, I suppose so. But your mother needn’t go.’

“‘I’ll go,’ said some one who hadn’t spoken before.

“It was Lady Moon.”

(“Oh-h,” said the Others, softly, and very glad; and the Princess smiled
back at them.)

“The moment she spoke, the Star People felt every perplexity smoothed
away, and it all became simple and plain. There wasn’t the slightest
reason in the Heavens, why they should not take that lonely little baby
for their own, to care for and to love.

“The clouds in piled-up masses lay low on Xyntli’s mountain; and it was
an easy matter for the Star People to follow Lady Moon down from level
to level. When they reached the limit of the cloud-stairway, they could
see once more; how right it was that they should wait—their blazing
glory hidden—while Lady Moon, her lantern darkened, should slip unseen
down the bare shoulder of the mountain, to the strip of forest, left
like a dark finger pointing up the slope.

“Ah, but think of a helpless, frightened little child—only two years and
a scrap over—alone in a dark cave in that awful desolation!

“How must he have felt—that little Bee Baby—when, suddenly, a soft light
shone into the cave, and he looked into the face of the loveliest of
ladies, who was holding her lantern so that it disclosed to her—huddled
into the farthest corner of the cave—a small brown heap. Only the eyes,
like a little frightened animal’s, looking out of it, showed that it was
alive.

“And the baby?

  HIS WONDERING EYES LOOKED FROM LADY MOON’S SHOULDER
]

“When he looked into that pitying face, and saw the tender arms held out
to him, his own went out in answer; and then he was held close—nestled
like a young bird or a tired baby—as he was—in the shelter of that
loving breast.

“Then, what baby king had ever such a royal progress as that brown
little child?

“His wondering eyes looked from Lady Moon’s shoulder, as she carried him
up the stately stairway of mass upon mass of cloud, whose lowest step
was the mighty mountain, and whose highest led to the measureless
Heavens! And grouped along its heights were the radiant Star People,
whose splendors might have frightened him if their faces had not been so
kind with loving welcome. All those of whom we have talked, and many
more, assembled to welcome one little helpless child.

“It was worth it, to see his eyes shine and the happy dimple come in his
cheek. He clasped one arm, tight, around Lady Moon’s neck, and stretched
out the other to these new friends, without a trace of fear. Why should
he be afraid? Hadn’t he loved the shining sun, and all beautiful things,
his whole two years of life?

“So he listened to the song Lady Moon sang low to him; and as they
passed along, the Star People caught the refrain, and took it up:—

                      “The sorrow is over;
                      Thy Star life’s begun.
                      Hear the golden bees humming
                      For joy at thy coming,
                      Oh, little Bee Baby,
                      Dear child of the Sun!

“Listen!” said the Princess.

There was a sound, very small and clear and
silvery:—One—two—three—four—and _One more!_

And that was a Bewitchment! Everybody must vanish at once!

                                  VII
                          LADY MOON’S LANTERN

On the terrace there was a Pergola—that was two rows of white columns
with criss-cross bars overhead and vines growing over it. There were
built-in seats between the columns, but there were always chairs
besides.

There was no one in it. Down below, in the garden, there were Shapes
flitting about in the dusk. They came up out of it, to the Pergola, all
together; and they were the Princess and the Others.

A large spider was spinning down, with a clear yellow sky behind it, at
the far end of the Pergola. They were obliged to watch it. It dropped
and sprung, elastic, on the end of its thread—then dropped—and sprung;
and then it clawed up again, working its legs. They could see them
distinctly against the sky, though it was quite a distance away. Out at
their end, the sky was cool, with a white moon in it; so there were two
kinds of shadows: large, blurred ones from the last daylight; and in
them, moon-shadows of the vines on the long white seats and on the floor
and down one side of the Princess’s dress—sitting in a chair. The
moon-shadows were very faint, but they were a clear pattern, and the
daylight shadows had no edges; soon there would be only moon. It was
very interesting.

And the slide of Lady Moon’s lantern was about three quarters open.

“Wasn’t it lovely she took him?” said Phyllisy. “I’d rather she than
anybody else.”

“But it stopped short,” said Pat.

“That was a proper end of a story, with everybody happy,” said the
Princess. “You wouldn’t want any more than that, would you?”

“The people weren’t, with the houses and everything spoiled.”

“But they built new ones, very quickly. It doesn’t take long to build a
house like a bird-cage. They drove the loaded ox-carts only a little way
down the slope of the mountain; and before you could think, there was a
new village just like the old, and everything was just as it was before.
The brown babies and the spotted pigs ran and tumbled about, and the
women went right on grinding corn to make more and more flat cakes; but
they didn’t do much housework or sewing, and everybody slept a good deal
in the midday heat; then when the cool evening came they gathered
together to visit comfortably, while the children played about in the
moonlight.”

“Like us?” asked the Kitten.

“Like us,” said the Princess. “Only you aren’t playing about; you are
listening to more story.”

“Oh, is it more?” asked Pat.

“A tiny bit,” said the Princess. And the Others wriggled down into their
places to listen quite differently from the way they listened when it
was conversation. She began to speak in a still voice:—

“So it was one night when the full, round moon shone, silver-bright
above the treetops. One of the women sat a little apart, and watched it
soaring among the stars. And as she looked, it seemed to her it was not
quite round; a tiny slice was gone from one edge.

“‘See the moon!’ she called to the others, pointing upward.

“They gathered near; and as they watched it, the dark shadow crept
forward, across the face of the moon.

“‘What is it?’ asked the children.

“‘I know not,’ said the old grandmother. ‘It comes so at times; but
never have I seen it like this. Before, it has covered the whole moon,
or gone over one edge—like a great shadow. But this is round, like a
dark ball, and small. See, the moon shows around it.’

“It was as she said: a thin thread of light, like a silver ring, almost
surrounded the dark something that came between their eyes and the moon.

“‘It is just like the Bee Baby!’ said one of the children. ‘Don’t you
remember how round his little head was?’

“‘I wonder what became of him,’ said another.

“‘Perhaps he’s there—in the sky,’ said a third.

“But the grandmother said: ‘You are foolish children. He is dead.
Xyntli’s snakes could tell—’

“Wise children know when to stop arguing with older people about things
that only children understand. So they said no more to the grandmother,
but drew away, and talked and whispered to each other—while the small
round shadow passed on, across the bright lantern of the moon, and left
it clear once more.”

  THE SMALL ROUND SHADOW PASSED ON ACROSS THE BRIGHT LANTERN OF THE MOON
]

“But it was truly the Bee Baby,” said Pat. “And now they could know what
became of him.”

“What did he do to the moon?” asked the Kitten, because she didn’t
exactly understand.

“What do you think about this?” asked the Princess. “If a little
child—so tall”—she showed, with her hand—“follows a beautiful lady with
a lantern hung on her arm, don’t you think, once in a great while, his
round little head _might_ come in the way, and interfere with its
light?”

“It did. That was it,” said the Kitten comfortably.

Then, with Lady Moon throwing leaf patterns and white light down upon
them, and the whole world very still, the Princess told them a song:—

         “Who loves to follow wherever you roam,
               Lady Moon?”
                   “Bee Baby.”
         “Is he happy in Starland?—so far from his home?”
               “He may be.

                 “Over Milky-Way meadows
                   Fly the bees, living gold;
                 There he strays, blessed Lamb,
                   Safe, with love for his fold.”

         “Who comes to nestle so close in your arm,
               Lady Moon?”
                   “Bee Baby.”
         “Is he falling asleep, to a Starland lullaby’s charm?”
               “Hush—he may be!”

                                  VIII
                          ANDROMEDA’S BIRTHDAY

                      “Nine more days,
                      And then comes a birthday,”

the Kitten sang, over and over, making different tunes each time. She
sang it softly, to herself, but it was loud enough to be heard.

“Dear-my-soul!” said the Princess. “Whatever will happen when you’re a
seven-year-longlegs, ’stead of six? Skeeters, you know.”

The Kitten stopped singing and rubbed her leg where there were lumpy
spots above her socks.

“She’ll have stockings when they get too long,” said Pat.

“And the next thing we know, she’ll begin to be a Cat! Why don’t you
have birthdays like the Star People’s?”

“What kind?” asked the Kitten.

“Steady and reliable,” said the Princess. “Everybody is exactly the
right age to begin, and then they never grow any older.”

“But they are different ages,” Pat objected.

“The right age for _them_,” the Princess explained. “Haven’t you noticed
that they were?”

The Others thought about it for a minute, and decided that they couldn’t
very well be different.

“But if they are always going along the same, perhaps they wouldn’t
notice their birthdays,” said Phyllisy.

“Indeed, they would,” said the Princess, earnestly. “They’re
particularly good about remembering dates and anniversaries and times of
the year. And they’d never think of letting a birthday go by without
noticing it.”

“Would they have a party?” asked the Kitten.

“They do usually. Do you think it would help you along a little through
one of those nine days, to hear about one of them?”

And the Kitten seemed to think it would.

“Whose birthday is it going to be?” asked Pat.

“Andromeda’s, the same year that the Sailor’s Star was stolen; and Orion
gave the party. You remember the young meteors that he had planted were
just coming up in his garden when Cassiopeia came to tell him what a
misfortune had happened? All those same young plants had kept on growing
and growing, unusually well, and Orion was as proud of them as a comet
with two tails. They promised to be ripe just in time for Andromeda’s
birthday, and he said he would like to give the party.”

“To eat them?” asked Pat.

“Never!” said the Princess. “I thought you knew about meteors: when they
are exactly ripe you give them a bit of a pinch. Pop! goes a beautiful
starlet with a trail of gold-dust behind it.”

“Fireworks,” said the Kitten.

“That’s the way a balsam seed pops,” said Phyllisy.

“Yes, it reminds me of it,” agreed the Princess. “When they are ripe one
has to be very careful not to hit them, or they go off too soon. Orion
wouldn’t even pick off a leaf or pull up a weed, he was being so careful
to save every one for the birthday celebration; and how he did have to
watch the dogs, to keep them out!

“The night before, it was partly cloudy, and Orion almost drove
Cassiopeia wild, dodging about behind the drifting clouds, making his
last arrangements. Little Bear, too. It seemed as if he were possessed,
he who was always so quiet and steady—‘The best Little Bear that ever
happened!’ Andromeda used to say, when she gave him a bear-hug, and then
rubbed his soft fur the wrong way, from his tail clear down his nose, to
feel the tingles and see the sparks fly. But no sooner had they begun to
talk about her birthday than he began to be excited; and this last night
it seemed as if he could not keep still. Whenever a cloud lay so that he
could, he would go clear to the edge of it to watch Orion. Once,
Cassiopeia could scarcely believe her eyes: there was Orion, talking to
Lady Moon behind the clouds; then she saw Little Bear crowding in
between them, looking up at them eagerly. Orion was too much engrossed
to notice him, but Cassiopeia called at the top of her voice (and it was
a very high top), ‘Come here _this minute_, Little Bear! I should think
you were crazy!’

“He heard her, and came prancing back, zigzag, as fast as he could dodge
from cloud to cloud. When he was back in his place, barely in the nick
of time, his eyes almost twinkled out of his head, and his fur shone so
that Cassiopeia could hardly see his stars. She couldn’t help laughing,
though she was annoyed. It was bad enough for Orion to dodge around like
that; but his legs were so long he could get back to his place always
before the clouds floated off.

“The next night no one could have asked for better star-weather, just
plain clouds, not a jumpy kind to keep them wondering every half-hour
what it was going to do.

“A little before midnight the Star People began to come to the party.
Orion was the first to arrive, then Hercules and Draco.”

“Not Little Bear?” asked the Kitten.

“He was there without arriving—Andromeda and Cepheus and Cassiopeia and
Perseus and Little Bear. Very soon there was such a noise and chattering
down the Sky that one might have thought a whole flock of magpies was
coming: but Orion and Draco and Cassiopeia knew better, and magpies
don’t squeal and giggle quite like that.

“‘Jutht hear thothe Pleiadeth girlth,’ said Draco. ‘I don’t thee how any
one can be tho thilly.’

“‘That’s because you never were a girl,’ said Cepheus. At that,
Andromeda began to giggle too; and the more she tried to stop, the
harder she giggled.

“‘Now, what’th the matter with _her_?’ asked Draco.

“And then Andromeda squealed, and laughed so she choked, and Perseus had
to thump her on the back, while she gasped: ‘To think of Draco’s being a
g-gu-girl!—_Oh!_’

“‘She’s one, all right,’ remarked Orion, ‘and here are the others.’

“Maybe they were silly, but the seven Misses Pleiades certainly were
pretty to look at as they came in sight. Their gowns were of thin golden
gauze, with a multitude of tiny stars woven into the underdress; their
interlacing beams made a pattern, like gold embroidery, and they
shimmered faintly through the mist-like tissue that veiled them.

“They wore no other stars but one above the forehead. The stars of six
of the sisters were very brilliant, but the seventh was puzzling. When
one gave a quick glance and looked away one could see the star quite
plainly; but when one looked directly at her it was gone! It was like
the place where a star had been. This sister’s name was Merope, and her
eyes were so sweet and gentle that the people who loved her never missed
the star from her soft brown hair.

“The tallest of the sisters, whose name was Maia, came ahead (as much as
any one could be ahead where they all walked in a bunch!), and she
called to Orion: ‘Oh, weren’t you mean! Why didn’t you wait for us?’

“‘Didn’t you hear us calling you?’ cried Taygeta.

“‘We thought we’d be late,’ said Electra (no one thought of waiting for
an answer), ‘Taygeta kept us waiting so.’

“‘I never!’ said Taygeta. ‘It was Alcyone!’ Then they all looked at each
other and giggled again, and Andromeda giggled with them, where she and
Merope stood with their arms around each other’s waists. It was a
giggling match, and Cepheus and Cassiopeia and Orion and Hercules and
Perseus and Draco and Castor and Pollux—”

“The Zodiacs?” asked Phyllisy.

“Yes, the Gemini Brothers.”

“Did Sol let them?” asked Pat.

“Of course, for a party. They came just after the Pleiades girls. They
all looked at the gigglers, and they smiled because they were young and
pretty, and _they_ seemed to know what they were laughing at, but the
others couldn’t guess what it was, to save them!”

“Weren’t they silly?” said Pat. “But we do it, too.”

“And quite big girls—much bigger than we,” added Phyllisy.

“Even worse, Miss Phyllisy. I’ve noticed it,” said the Princess.

“Finally Cepheus said: ‘You might as well go home, Orion. These girls
don’t want a party to-night.’

“‘Oh, yes, we do!’ they cried. ‘Only Taygeta—’ Then they were off again.

“‘Come, come!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘Just pretend you have a little sense!’

“‘Draco has!’ cried Andromeda. ‘_He_ never was a girl!’

“Then everybody laughed together—Draco, and all; and when they were
quieted down they were ready to begin the party.

“Andromeda and Perseus took Little Bear and went off a little way, while
Orion placed the other Star People in two lines that led up to
Cassiopeia’s Chair. She and Cepheus stood at the head of the lines, on
either side of the chair. And then they began to sing Andromeda’s
Birthday Song:—

 “The stars sang together at the little maiden’s birth;
           They watched her through the years
           Of gladness and of tears;
 And they said: ‘She’ll come to dwell with us when she shall leave the
    Earth.

 “‘She shall bring an earthly blessing in which we have no part;
           We can only shine by night,
           When the sun has sunk from sight;
 She shall bring the sunshine with her—though it’s hidden in her heart!’

 “A thousand, thousand greetings to the maiden, ever young!
           As the years the birthdays bring,
           The stars together sing
 The praise of maid the sweetest whose praise was ever sung!

“As the Star People sang, Perseus led Andromeda slowly up to them.
Little Bear walked ahead; and he was so proud and, at the same time, so
excited, that he hardly knew whether he wanted to walk in a very
dignified way, or to prance and dance. The consequence was, he did both.
Every few steps, he made a funny little skip; then he was so embarrassed
to think he had done it that he’d rub his paw over his nose, and almost
tip over, because he was walking along all the time.

“How they did laugh at him! all but Andromeda; she looked very serious
and grave, because it was a Ceremony. As she walked, with her hand in
Perseus’, between her friends to the chair where her father and mother
stood waiting for her, she was so sweet and modest and stately—like a
little queen—that no one who saw her could have helped loving her.

“There was no doubt how Cepheus and Cassiopeia felt about it, when she
stopped before them, and Perseus and Little Bear stepped back; then she
clasped her hands and recited, in her clear, fresh voice, her little
verse:—

                 “With heartfelt joy and thankfulness,
                 I come to you, that you may bless
                 Your happy child to-day.
                 You, whom I owe all reverence
                 And love and prompt obedience,
                 Accept them now, I pray!

“A father-and-mother kiss on one’s birthday isn’t the gayest part of it,
but we know it’s the best—don’t we, Kitten?—and Andromeda is the only
Star Person who can have it. That is one reason why they love to keep
her birthday; it can be so complete.

“Cassiopeia and Cepheus placed Andromeda in the great chair, and the
Star People came, one by one, and knelt and kissed her hand, then
fastened a star-daisy in her hair—they kissed her pretty pink cheek too,
when they had done it; but that was just love and extra, not part of the
ceremony; so they made her a beautiful crown, and she looked more like a
queen than ever.

“When this was over she stepped down from the chair and took Perseus’
hand, and, with Little Bear ahead once more, they went down the Sky.
Orion followed with Maia; then Castor and Taygeta, and Pollux and
Alcyone. Hercules took Merope, because she was so gentle and never
laughed at him. That left three of the Pleiades girls,—Electra, Celeno,
and Sterope,—but Draco said: ‘That’th all right. I gueth I can walk with
three girlth. I’m long enough!’ How they squealed and giggled! But that
was the way they arranged it; and Cepheus and Cassiopeia came at the end
of the procession.”

“Where was it going?” asked Pat.

“First, they were going all around the Zodiac to carry greetings to the
people who were shut up. They always did it on birthdays, and they liked
that part, but it took a good while, and this time Orion was impatient
to have it over. He wanted to have them come to his especial share of
the party.

“And at last they came in sight of his garden; and Little Bear skipped
the funniest prance yet, when he saw what was waiting for them. This was
what Orion was talking about the night before, to Lady Moon.” The
Princess stopped just long enough to let the Others wonder what it could
be.——

“A moonbow,” began the Princess, and the Others said, “Oh-h!”

“A moonbow,” she repeated, “isn’t so gayly colored as a rainbow, but it
is shinier, and the most delightful thing you can imagine, to sit on, to
see a meteor party. And kind Lady Moon stood with her lantern behind the
edge of a cloud, so that the light shouldn’t interfere with the meteors,
and held the bow steady, exactly in the best place.

“Cassiopeia declared she never could walk up; but she did—to the top,
and sat down, with Little Bear cuddled up by her side with his toes
straight out in front of him, between her and Andromeda. The others
settled themselves on either side—all except Hercules and Draco. Draco
would have taken too much room; and Hercules said:—

“‘I guess I’ll stay here. If that cloud should happen to flop around,
that thing would go out like winkin’. I’ve seen ’em do it.’

“The Pleiades girls shrieked, and pretended they were coming down; and
Draco said: ‘Never mind. I’ll catth you if it meltth.’

“‘You sit still,’ said Orion. ‘That moonbow is there to stay. Lady Moon
and I know about that.’ But they never meant to get down; they only
liked to make a fuss.—What is it, Kitten?” The Princess could tell, by
the way she wriggled, when she wanted to know something.

She held her foot tight and rocked on her tucked-under leg when she
asked it: “Was the Bee Baby too young to invite?”

“He would have been rather young for a party; but that wasn’t the reason
he didn’t come. This birthday was before there was any Bee Baby. Little
Bear was the only child they had.”

“All right,” said the Kitten. “Then what did they do?”

“At last, when they were all settled on the moonbow, Orion went into his
garden. He stooped over one of the bushes, very carefully, lest he
should rub against some of the others, and gave just the right kind of a
pinch,—then, ‘Ah-h,’ said the Star People, as a lovely meteor flew
up—up, over their heads, leaving a little trail of gold-dust behind it.

“That was the beginning; and Orion had good reason to be proud of his
garden, for each meteor seemed lovelier than the last. They couldn’t
decide whether the blue ones were prettier than the red or the green; or
those that flew in straight lines than those that flew in spirals, they
were all so beautiful.

“So it went on with hardly a mishap. Almost every meteor was just ripe,
and Orion joggled only two so that they went off too soon; and he had
come to the last two bushes. They stood side by side and were the finest
in the garden; that was why he had saved them for the last.

“‘What are those dogs after?’ asked Cepheus. Orion had left them with
Sagittarius, in the Zodiac, for fear of accidents.

“‘Where?’ called Orion, who couldn’t see from the garden, so well as
they from the moonbow.

“‘There they come,’ said Cassiopeia, and they all craned their necks to
see.

“‘Yap! yap!’ cried the dogs, and on they came; and just ahead of
them—barely out of reach—was—? A comet, of course! What else could it
be? It was only a scrap of a comet, with a stub of a tail, and how it
was scrabbling along!

“It was heading straight by, when it saw Orion standing by his meteor
bushes; and what did that bad, mischievous little comet do, but turn
square off, with a flirt of his saucy tail under the dogs’ noses, and
make directly for the two bushes! Straight after it came the dogs—and
three Orions couldn’t have stopped them, they hated a comet so—and
rip—smash! they ran right through the bushes, and thirty meteors at once
flew up in one splendid blaze!

“Orion’s first thought was that it was a misfortune, and spoiled the end
of his party. But Cassiopeia said, as soon as she could get her breath:
‘I think that was perfectly splendid! And you never would have had the
heart to send them all off at once, like that!’

“‘Yes, indeed!’ said every one else; and Orion thought so, too.”

“I’d rather,” said Pat. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Much rather,” agreed the Princess. “Who would choose deliberately to
have a party fizzle out, when it might go in

  THREE ORIONS COULDN’T HAVE STOPPED THEM
]

a blaze of glory? It was time to go home, anyway; so they climbed down
from the moonbow.

“‘Oh, hasn’t this been the loveliest party we ever had?’ said Andromeda.

“‘Yes, it has,’ said Merope. ‘And I know who has enjoyed it more than
anybody.’

“‘Who?’

“‘Little Bear.’

“Andromeda turned and dropped on her knees beside him to give him a hug,
and his eyes twinkled like stars.

“‘Bless his little heart!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘I wish we could keep his
birthday, but nobody knows when it is.’

“‘But we love him just the same!’ said Andromeda, rubbing his fur the
wrong way and ending with a little shake of his nose—and the sparks flew
as if he were a garden of meteors himself. And that was really the end
of the party.”

The Kitten had something in her mind to do at once when she was
perfectly sure the party was over. For that very minute when the
Princess came to the end and Pat and Miss Phyllisy began to talk about
it, she slipped her foot out from under her to have it ready to walk on.
And the next minute, when Phyllisy looked around to see why the child
wasn’t talking too, when it was rather especially her story, she was
already starting away—and she didn’t care to tell what for.

Because they wondered, and they knew she wouldn’t mind—it was only that
she didn’t like to explain—they followed after. When she was clear away,
the Kitten began to run, so when they came to the place in the garden
where the balsams grew all in a row, she was there and had found a ripe
one.

There were very few flowers left, and a great many seedpods, and when
they pinched them at the tip—or only barely touched them—they popped
delightfully, but there didn’t any star shoot out.

But they pretended there did; and—as Miss Phyllisy remarked—you couldn’t
see actual fireworks if you set them off with the sun shining like that.

                                   IX
                            A SURPRISE PARTY

It seemed to the Others that the Princess was a _long_ time coming. And
once they had been afraid they wouldn’t be ready in time. But they
were—too soon, and it was the watching that made it seem so long. They
_flew_ when they saw her, and hurried her along.

“It’s something to surprise you,” said Miss Phyllisy.

“We did it all this morning,” added Pat.

“Thought of it and gathered them and everything,” chattered the Kitten,
walking on all sides of them.

“Don’t you tell,” warned Pat’s eyebrows.

“You couldn’t guess, could you?” asked the Kitten.

“Now stop; from here,” said Phyllisy, “shut your eyes and we’ll lead you
so you won’t see too soon.”

So the Princess shut her eyes, and Pat and Phyllisy led her and the
Kitten went ahead over the lawn until they said, “Now, open!”

Directly before them was the great wicker chair from the piazza, sitting
under a tree. But nobody would have known it was that chair at all—so
trimmed and flowery.

There were pink and purple and white ones from the garden, and tall
plumes of small feathery ones, that were wild ones, nodding on the back,
and all lovely.

“Do you notice what they are?” asked Phyllisy. “We wouldn’t have any
other kind.”

“Do you know why we had that kind?” asked Pat.

“They’re _stars_!” cried the Kitten.

“Because you said ‘asters’ meant stars,” said Phyllisy.

“And it’s Cassiopeia’s!—For you!” they all finished. “Do you like it?”

And the Princess reached around and gathered them all into one
four-sided hug, because how she loved it she couldn’t otherwise tell.
And Cassiopeia’s never had a quarter so many stars. “We didn’t leave one
in the garden,—large enough to pick,” said Pat.

“That’s where you’re going to sit to tell the story,” said the Kitten.

“And when you’re ready, we’ll lead you up to it, and make ‘salaams,’”
said Miss Phyllisy.

When she had admired more particularly the way they had done it, she was
ready, and they went off to the next tree to come back properly, Pat and
Miss Phyllisy leading the Princess, and the Kitten holding up her gown
behind.

Then the Princess turned around and stood in front of the chair, and the
Others stood facing her in a row.

“Salaam alekûm,” said the Princess, bowing very low and saluting with
her down-dropped hand from her feet, to her heart, to her forehead, in
two scallops.

“Alekûm essalaam,” replied the Others, saluting the same to her.

And to the Princess and Miss Phyllisy and the Kitten it was a kind of
game they played, but it was not play at all to Pat. Even the little
children said, “My compliments to you,” like that, where she came from.

“This story begins with Perseus and Andromeda sitting in a favorite
place of theirs, where three tall poplars grow on the bank of the
Starland River,” the Princess announced when she had taken her seat.

“The three sisters that were changed into them?” asked Phyllisy.

The Princess nodded. “Must have been.”

“Is it a real river?” asked Pat. “Like any river?”

“Like all the most beautiful rivers in the world in one, only changed
into star-meanings—fireflies winking among the reeds, and fairy trees
along the banks, with strange glowing fruit and blossoms on their
shadowy branches. The poplars carry theirs proudly on their tops, like a
crown.”

“It’s something Beyond, isn’t it, Dearie?—to understand just what it’s
like,” suggested Phyllisy, “you have to know it inside, and stop.”

“That’s the only way,” said the Princess. “It’s gone in the telling—like
fairy gold when you touch it. But the river was there in Starland, and
there were Perseus and Andromeda having a cosy talk.

“‘What do you suppose ails Little Bear, to make him act so?’ said she.

“‘How does he act?’ asked Perseus.

“‘I don’t see how you could have helped noticing him. It’s ever since my
birthday. He hops when he walks, and looks so important; and lately he
has taken to going off by himself—nobody knows where. I believe he’s
planning something.’

“‘Let’s watch him, and find out what it is.’

“‘Yes. That’s what I spoke about it for. But we mustn’t let him guess we
are watching. It would spoil his fun.’

“‘Of course not,’ said Perseus.

“A few nights later, Perseus beckoned mysteriously to Andromeda. She was
listening to old Aquarius. She often went to visit him, and it pleased
him even more than it bored her, so she liked to do it.

“But when she saw Perseus, she made her escape as quickly as she could,
and came to him.

“‘What is it?’ she whispered.

“‘Little Bear has just gone again. I saw him coming toward Orion’s
garden. Orion was there, and Little Bear pretended he was going by—not
anywhere in particular. Then Orion came out of the garden and went
toward Sagittarius’ House, and Little Bear turned in, quick as a wink,
and went through and on—down the Milky Way.’

“‘Come, quick!’ said Andromeda. ‘Are you sure you know which way he
went?’

“‘Yes. We’ll find him easily enough.’

“Orion had come back to his garden, but they were in such haste they
didn’t even see that he was there. He watched them whisk through, and as
they were going out at the farther side, he called to them: ‘Did you
come to see me?’

“‘No,’ answered Perseus. ‘What makes you think we did?’

“‘Because you are in my garden.’

“‘We aren’t now,’ said Andromeda over her shoulder—pushing Perseus ahead
of her. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

“‘No. Only you might say good-evening.’

“‘We do,’ she called. ‘But we can’t stop now.’

“So she and Perseus ran on, and before long they caught sight of Little
Bear. They crept cautiously nearer, where they could watch him unseen.
He was hunting for something.

“‘What do you suppose it is?’ whispered Andromeda.

“‘I can’t make out—wait—there! What’s that he’s found?’

“‘It’s a meteor bush,’ said she.

“Little Bear stopped by the bush—looked at it—looked around him; then he
trotted on—hunting for something.

“They watched him find another bush—and another; and each time look back
and forth. It was very mysterious.

  LITTLE BEAR STOPPED BY THE BUSH
]

“‘He is fixing the places in his mind, so that he can come back to them
again!’ exclaimed Andromeda.

“‘That’s it,’ agreed Perseus. ‘I wonder what for.’

“‘We’ll find out.—Be careful! He’s coming home.’

“They kept close until Little Bear had trotted by them and was out of
sight. Then they went themselves to examine the bushes. But that didn’t
help them to understand. They were the ordinary kind of wild meteors
that never grow very large; and they were still quite green.

“So they gave up puzzling about it, and went back to be civil to Orion.
But when he wanted to know why they were in such a hurry, they were so
mysterious he thought they had a secret; and he never guessed that the
secret was Little Bear’s, and one reason why they wouldn’t tell was
because they didn’t know it themselves!

“They began to think they never were going to know, for Little Bear
didn’t go off again and gave them no chance to find out.”

“I thought I knew, once,” said Miss Phyllisy. “But I don’t know so well
now. Can you guess, Pat?”

Pat shook her head. “No. But she’ll tell us.” And the Princess went on
to tell them, in her own way:—

“Cepheus awoke one night, the first of the Star People. As he turned his
head quickly, something bobbed against his forehead; and he could
see—out of the tail of his eye—something dangling that moved when he
did. He took off his crown and looked at it. There was a rather wilted
green meteor tucked into it. He knew he didn’t put it there himself, but
he didn’t take it out, and while he was thinking about it, Draco woke.

“He gave his wings a flap to see that the joints worked right, and
something fell out of the fold of one of them. What should it be but a
little green meteor with a very short stem!

“‘That’th funny,’ he said. Then he stuck it on one of the sharp prongs
of his wing, and came over to Cepheus.

“‘Thee what I’ve got,’ he said.

“‘So have I,’ said Cepheus. ‘Where did they come from?’

“‘Maybe it’th a joke. Do you thuppoth any one elth hath them?—I’m going
to look.’

“‘Cathiopeia hath!’ he called, in a whisper. ‘Right on the arm of her
chair bethide her.’

“Cepheus was perfectly willing to have some one else do the running
about; so he waited, and in a few minutes Draco came back to him.

“‘Every thingle perthon around here hath one,’ he said. ‘Herculeth’ ith
thtuck into the crook of hith thumb where he’th holding hith club; and
Pertheuth’ hath two thnakes twithted around it on hith Gorgon’th head.’

“But the time was gone by to discuss it quietly, for Cassiopeia was
awake. By chance, her meteor was the first thing her eye rested upon.

“‘What is that?’ she said to herself, and picked it up. ‘I’d like to
know where that came from. _See here!_’ she called to Cepheus, and her
voice began to sound excited. ‘Look at that!’

“He came toward her, and Draco followed him. ‘What is it?’ he asked,
pretending not to know.”

“To be funny?” asked Pat.

“Yes. Cepheus was a bit of a wag in his way. ‘Can’t you see?’ Cassiopeia
asked impatiently. ‘A little wilted green meteor!’

“‘What of it? It won’t hurt you.’

“‘Of course it won’t! But how did it come here?’

“‘You must have put it there yourself, to decorate.’

“‘Now you know better. Wouldn’t I know it if—Why! _You’ve got one
yourself!_’ she almost shrieked.

“‘Have I?’ asked Cepheus, innocently.

“‘There—in your crown!’ and she pointed to it. And Draco could not keep
still another second.

“‘We’ve all got them!’ he cried. Then Cassiopeia knew they had been
pretending—to make sport of her; and that was the time everybody else
had to wake up!”

“It was Little Bear put them,” said the Kitten.

“That was the very person. And Andromeda guessed it at once. But even
she couldn’t guess _why_. So she chose to wait a little before she
spoke. Perseus must have forgotten, or it took him longer to wake up;
but suddenly it occurred to him too. Andromeda pulled his elbow just as
the word was at his lips. ‘Don’t say anything,’ she whispered. ‘Look at
Little Bear!’

“Perseus looked; and it was hard not to laugh. Little Bear did laugh—in
his own way. He twinkled! He was close by Cassiopeia’s chair, and fairly
bursting with importance and excitement, but he was so little they quite
overlooked him.

“Cassiopeia went straight on talking.

“‘I want to understand it,’ she said. ‘It seems as if it must mean
something, and I can’t see one bit of sense in it,—just little green
meteors that won’t go off. What are they for?’

“‘Little Bear knows,’ said Andromeda, quickly. She was afraid his
feelings would be hurt to hear his meteors spoken of disrespectfully.

“‘Little Bear!’ cried Cassiopeia; and the Star People fell back in a
circle and left him in the centre, the twinkles running over his fur as
he laughed inside and shook with excitement.

“‘Little Bear,’ said Cassiopeia, ‘did you do it?’

“Little Bear’s eyes danced with delight; then he buried his nose in
Cassiopeia’s dress.

“‘Of course he did,’ said Perseus. ‘We saw him hunting for them.’

“‘But what is it _for_?’ she insisted.

“‘I know—I know!’ cried Draco. ‘Don’t you know what night thith ith?
It’th the night Little Bear got hith Thtar!’

“‘And he means it instead of a birthday!’ cried Cassiopeia. ‘Don’t you
remember? We said we’d keep it if we knew when it was.’

“Andromeda was on her knees beside Little Bear, her arms around him,
when Orion and the Pleiades girls arrived—each with a little green
meteor—to know what it meant. Then how they did chatter!—a regular Star
People’s chorus.

“‘Now, wasn’t that the cleverest Little Bear you ever heard of?’ said
Maia. ‘Just think of his picking them all with his little nose, for us.’

“‘And tucking them in where we’d be sure to find them,’ said Alcyone.

“‘I wish I’d seen him traveling back and forth while we were asleep,’
said Orion. ‘How many times do you suppose he went through my garden?’

“‘If we knew how many he brought at onthe, we could tell,’ said Draco.
‘Jutht count how many there are of uth.’

“It seemed as if they never would make an end of petting Little Bear and
praising his cleverness, and wondering what he thought they could do
with those silly, useless little meteors; but they were careful not to
let him hear them say they were of no use. But when they had said it all
again and again, Merope thought it was time to do something better.

“‘What shall we do for the party?’ she asked.

“They were troubled then; they would have liked to do something very
particular, and it was hard to think of anything without taking time to
plan. Cassiopeia advised them to put it off, but—to their
astonishment—Hercules objected. He wouldn’t listen to any such word.

“‘We aren’t going to do anything of the kind,’ he said. ‘After that
Little Bear has worked like that, and given something to every one of
us, he’s going to have his party the same night, and not be kept
waiting.’

“‘Very well,’ said Orion. ‘You plan it.’

“‘I will. Maybe it won’t be much; but it’ll be _now_.’

“‘It’s a surprise party, to have you plan it,’ suggested Andromeda. ‘And
they’re always fun.’

“‘What shall we do?’ asked Electra.

“‘We’ll go to the Ship,’ announced Hercules, ‘and Little Bear shall be
Captain. I guess we can have a pretty good party, if we haven’t been
thinking about it.’

“The Star-Ship was across the river; and Hercules often went there,
because it reminded him of a voyage he had taken before he was a Star
Person, but they seldom went there together. So, only to go was a
frolic.”

“Did they go in a procession?” asked the Kitten.

“Yes, just as they did on birthdays, and explained to the Zodiac People
how they were celebrating because Little Bear had his Star. He marched
at the head, and you can fancy whether he felt proud. They pretended
they were a party of adventurers setting out on a cruise, and they took
Castor and Pollux along with them.

“They crossed the river by the tall poplar trees and came to the
splendid Ship. The stern went up high in a beautiful quirl, and the
figure on the prow was the head of a woman.”

“That’s like the Jane Ellen,” said Phyllisy.

“Yes, but the ships were very different. This was the good ship Argo:
Captain Little Bear. And they made a wonderful voyage, because they were
all good sailors on the Sea of Make-Believe. There were storms and
pirates; and they stopped at a cannibal island, off the coast of Borneo,
rescued a captive damsel, who was just about to be eaten, and restored
her to her parents in Scotland in three shakes of Little Bear’s tail.
There never was a captain like him, nor such a happy Little Bear. And
when they were tired of thrilling adventures, the Pleiades girls danced,
and Castor and Pollux sang songs for them—while the Ship took care of
herself.

“On shipboard, when the sea is smooth is a proper time to spin yarns;
so, at the end of one of the dances, Maia said: ‘Now somebody must tell
a story.’

“‘Hercules,’ said Andromeda. ‘This is his party.’

“‘His surprise party,’ corrected Orion. And they never were more
surprised than to hear him say:—

“‘I will. What about?’

“‘Bears,’ said Andromeda. ‘Because it’s for Little Bear.’

“‘All right,’ agreed Hercules. ‘I’d just as soon have it that as
anything.’

“They settled themselves around him to hear the story. ‘Now go on—about
the bears,’ said Andromeda, giving Little Bear a squeeze.

“‘Before there were any Star People in the Sky, it was full of bears,’
began Hercules.

“‘Little Bears?’ asked Orion.

“‘No. Great, big, horrible bears.’

“‘Ath big ath Major?’ asked Draco.

“‘Bigger—twice over; and bad. They’d go roarin’ and fightin’ around, and
they’d eat up a girl—like Taygeta, here—as quick as they’d look at her;
but there weren’t any girls here to eat.’

“‘Were they polar bears?’ asked Perseus.

“‘No. They were—were—_China_ bears. The worst kind there is. There
weren’t any girls then, nor any Star People. There were just bears, and
not so many stars as there are now. There were just exactly one
thousand; but there were meteors—and the bears liked ’em better than
anything.’ (Little Bear gave a shiver of joy, and Hercules went on.)
‘The meteors were big, too, bigger than any you ever saw. When they were
ripe, they were bigger than a bear’s head; but sometimes they wouldn’t
go off—and that’s what made the bears do what they did.’

“‘What did they do?’ asked Perseus.

“‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ said Hercules.

“‘S—sh!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘Don’t interrupt. _When_ didn’t they go off?’

“‘For the biggest bear’s party. There was going to be a party, and the
bears all came; and not one of them would go off.’

“‘The bearth?’ asked Draco.

“‘S—sh!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘The meteors, of course.’

“‘It thounded ath if he meant the bearth,’ explained Draco; but Hercules
went on, undisturbed. It was remarkable how he could talk, now he was
started. He looked right at Little Bear while he told his story, and
Little Bear looked back at him in perfect delight.

“‘There wouldn’t one of ’em go off,’ he repeated, ‘and that made the
great big horrible bears madder than hornets—and they went tearin’
around, and they would have smashed all the meteors and eaten each other
up; but there was one bear that was a funny fellow, and he used to make
’em laugh. And they liked that sometimes, when they were tired of
fightin’.

“‘So this bear said to the others: “I’ve thought of something. Let’s
have some fun. I know what to do with these meteors.”’

“‘What?’ asked Perseus.

“‘S—sh!’ said Cassiopeia; and ‘You wait,’ said Hercules.

“‘So the other bears said: “All right. You tell us what it is.” And the
funny bear told ’em what to do, and they all went to work, and they
gnawed out the inside of the meteors. And they were bigger than the
bears’ heads—so their heads went inside; and they gnawed ’em out until
there wasn’t anything left but the thin shell; and they gnawed holes
through that in places, besides—just the way the funny bear told ’em to.
And it was a cloudy night, and those bears all worked like sixty, and
before morning they had just a thousand meteors all gnawed out.

“‘The next night began by being cloudy too; but about two hours after
dark, it all cleared off. The clouds rolled up from one side, all
together, like a curtain in front of a tableau. And the first man that
looked up at the sky fell right down in a fit, so everybody around had
to attend to him. But when he began to come out of it, the rest of them
looked up—just to see what the weather was; and every one of ’em yelled
right out!’

“Hercules stopped and looked around at his audience. They were listening
so breathlessly they couldn’t even ask questions, and he must have been
proud of his success. He paused to enjoy it, until Cassiopeia said, ‘Oh,
go on!’

“‘What do you suppose made ’em?’ he asked, looking at Little Bear,—‘made
’em yell, I mean. In that sky, there ought to have been just one
thousand stars, spread around equally; instead of that, there were one
thousand _Chinamen’s heads_, grinnin’ at ’em, over each other’s
shoulders, all on one half of the sky.’ (‘Oh!’ gasped the Star People.)
‘Those horrible bears had popped one star inside of each of those
gnawed-out meteors, and arranged ’em like that.’”

(“Like the heads on the Chinese plates,” whispered Phyllisy, and the
Princess twinkled at her with her eyes.)

“‘Made jack-o’ lanterns of them,’ said Cepheus.

“‘Yes,’said Hercules. ‘One thousand jack-o’lanterns, because that funny
bear said it would be a joke.’

“‘I should think it was,’ said Orion.

“‘Well, it _wasn’t_,’ said Hercules. ‘At least, it was the poorest joke
those bears ever tried. It did for them! Of course, people couldn’t
stand such goings on with the stars. So they said: “Those bears have got
to be cleared out; and we’ll have some Star People to take care of our
sky.” So they picked out some people they knew were good at huntin’ wild
animals and weren’t afraid; and Orion and Perseus and I—and some more of
us—came first; and we just cleared out those horrible bears that weren’t
fit to be here, and made this the right kind of a Starland for us all to
live in.’

“‘Did you drive them, every one, out?’ asked Alcyone.

“‘Yes,’ said Hercules. ‘At least—almost; but there was just one little
bit of a bear that didn’t seem at all like the others,’—Little Bear
wriggled with delight—‘and Orion said to me, “I guess we’ll keep this
little chap. He seems a pretty good kind of a bear.” And I said, “All
right. We’ll try him; but if he goes to cuttin’ up—out he’ll go, after
the others!”’

“‘But he didn’t!’ said Andromeda, squeezing him, ‘and we couldn’t live
without him! Is one single bit of that story true?’

“‘There’s Little Bear, to prove it,’ said Orion. And it was not fair to
ask; for it was an absorbing story while it lasted, and that’s more than
can be said for a great many stories,” finished the Princess.

“Not yours, Dearie,” said Miss Phyllisy. “Yours are always as good as
that—and better.”

“They interrupt just like us, don’t they?” asked Pat.

“Just as we’re interrupting now,” said Phyllisy. “What came next,
Dearie?”

She was looking off, over their heads, at the sky beyond the treetops;
she looked back quickly, smiling at the Others. “Next, Miss Phyllisy?
Not very much. When the laughter and talk about the story had died away,
every one sat quiet, a little tired and ready to be serious—and they
fell to talking about the Ship.

“‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ said Celeno. ‘Wouldn’t you love to see her
sailing?’

“‘We shall, some time,’ said Orion.

“‘Do you really believe it?’ asked Maia.

“‘Surely,’ said Castor. ‘She’s lighter now than she used to be.’

“‘A good deal,’ agreed Hercules. ‘I measure every once in a while, and
she keeps going up—every year a little.’

“‘Sing the song about it, Castor,’ said Andromeda. But he didn’t,
because Draco exclaimed suddenly: ‘It’th going to clear!’

“They had forgotten all about the weather!

“‘Goodness!’ cried Cassiopeia. ‘I do believe it is! And we’ve all that
way to go! Come this second, or we’ll be caught in it!’

“And, just as we’re going to scurry in before that big black cloud
catches us, those careless Star People had to scamper, laughing all the
way, back to their places, to be there before the clouds drifted away.
They were lucky that it cleared so late. All they lost of the party was
Castor’s song about the ship. And they knew it as well as he did.”

“But we don’t know it,” said Phyllisy.

Pat twisted her eyebrow and glanced up for an instant. “If we go now, we
can’t scurry. It won’t come soon enough. You can tell it.”

The Kitten looked up, too, weatherwise. Then she folded her hands very
comfortably in her lap. “It truly won’t,” she said. And the Princess
believed her, and leaned back once more in the flowery chair.

“I’d like to sing it to you,” she said, “because it’s such a pretty
song, and it explains what they meant by the Ship’s growing lighter.”

The wind of the shower stirred the plumes of asters behind the
Princess’s head while she sang; but even when the song was ended they
weren’t obliged to scurry. So they waited a little longer for an excuse
to scamper, because they wanted to.

THE SONG OF THE SHIP

        “I’ll build you a palace of gold, my dear,
        With diamond knobs for its doors;
            With banqueting-halls,
            And rooms to give balls,
        And thistle-down rugs on the floors.
        And other splendors untold, my dear,
        Shall be yours. When I once begin
        To build the palace, it won’t take long.”
            “Oh, when?”
              “When my ship comes in.”

        “Would you ride in an ivory chariot, my dear,
        With steeds that are swift as the wind?
            Six zebras shall stand
            To wait your command;
        Then, away!—and leave dullness behind!
        Their harness of silk all a-tinkle with bells
        Of crystal, makes musical din.
        They shall surely be yours, if you’ll say but the word.”
            “But _when_?”
              “When my ship comes in.”

        There’s a Ship that is freighted with heart’s desires;
        Fast moored ’midst the stars she must lie,
            Till the last, least weight
            Of greed or of hate
        Shall out of her cargo fly.
        When the wish of each heart is gentle and kind,
        With no taint of a selfish sin,
        Then—light as a dream—the buoyant Ship,
        The Ship from the Stars shall come in!

                                   X
                            TRAVELERS’ TALES

There came a frost one night, and it was most exciting in the morning to
see the bewitchments everywhere. Sometimes it was whole trees and rows
of trees solid gold, and sometimes it was only one tiny branch blazing
red by itself out of plain green. It was joyful surprises every minute
to walk in it. They filled their hands with leaves, more than they could
hold, gathered one by one—and each the most beautiful they had found.
The Others gave them to the Princess until her hands were brimming; then
they filled their own, but they were still for her.

Before they could believe it, they came to the hill that was the round
top of the world. It was covered with short grass, very slippery to
climb but worth while, for from it they could see World-without-end, and
Ocean. There were mountains, far away, on three sides, and on the
fourth—also far away—was the Ocean, set up on edge. The sharp top line
of it came opposite, but everything was below them, with long slopes
going wide, and they were up in the middle, directly under the deep blue
sky. And they could see frost-bewitchments over all the land.

On the face of the very blue sea were tiny white flecks that were ships.
They looked as if they were climbing up, or slipping down, on account of
the sea being set up on edge.

“Suppose this,” said Miss Phyllisy to Pat and the Kitten (the Princess
was looking off, thinking: “What if the finest ship afloat were coming?”
and the Others wouldn’t disturb her). “Suppose this: Wouldn’t it be
funny if a ship went straight up; and it climbed up until it came to the
edge, and then kept going straight on ahead—off into the air?”

“But it couldn’t,” said Pat. “It has to stick right on; and then it
keeps rounding over until it is curling under. It _does, truly_,” she
insisted, though they didn’t contradict her, “because I’ve done it—when
I came; and it goes right along and nobody would know, but still it is
curling under; and you would think it was going straight ahead,
because—I ought to know, because I’ve been clear under, halfway around;
and it’s night there now. Now that is really true. _Honestly!_”

“That is the way it is, honestly,” said the Princess, for she had heard
all they said. “You can’t get off. Straight ahead you go and seem to go
and keep going; and back you come to the place you started from—if you
go long enough, because you’re tied down to it. But it’s a beautiful old
Earth to travel on, isn’t it?—and Starland to see besides.”

“Orion could sail straight off in a Star-Ship,” said the Kitten.

“Of course the Star People could go anywhere,” agreed Phyllisy. “How far
could they go, truly straight ahead, Dearie?”

“To the other end of Nowhere, and be no nearer the end—I should say. But
they don’t go, because their Law says they are to stay in their own
Starland.”

“Then they’ll be there at night,” said the Kitten.

“Where would they go?” asked Pat.

“To other Starlands,” said the Princess. And that was a surprising
answer, because not one of them supposed there could be any others. “The
Star People say there are,” the Princess assured them, “and I should
think they ought to know.”

“But how would they know, if they never go to them?” Miss Phyllisy
objected.

“Partly by seeing. For instance, there are the Far-Away Isles—two little
filmy streaks of light away down in the Southern sky, that look like
scraps of the Milky Way. The Star People often talk about them; and from
time to time some bit of news comes trickling in about outside places,
nobody knows how—vague rumors. It made a story one time, news coming
that way,” she ended, looking very attentively at a leaf in her hand,
and turning it over to examine the back, as if she didn’t know what was
expected of her!

But the Others were immediately disposing of their leaves where they
would be safe under stones, hopping and chirping like birds in a bush,
to settle themselves on the smooth ledges of rock that came through the
hill where it was thin on top, and were toasty warm from the sun. And
the Princess watched them, smiling to herself, but not saying a word
until everybody was comfortable.

“As I told you,” she began, “there are often bits of news floating about
in Starland—a sort of impression of something, very vague, that
comes—nobody knows how,—comets, possibly. And nobody would depend on
what they said.”

The Others were very sure _they_ wouldn’t.

“Neither would I,” said the Princess. “And perhaps that isn’t the way it
comes. But it comes some way. Sometimes vaguer and other times more
distinct. This time, all at once, there sprang up a real, definite
rumor: They were to have a visitor!

“Orion was the person who first spoke of it to the Pleiades girls. They
were dancing a pretty, twisty dance when he came strolling along and
called to them:—

“‘Are you practicing to be ready for company?’

“They didn’t catch what he said, and Taygeta would have stopped, but
Maia wouldn’t let them. So Orion waited and watched while they untangled
and finished in a straight line; and he might have gone far to see
anything so pretty as they were, in their gauzy gowns all a-glimmer with
tiny stars.

“‘Now you may talk, if you like,’ said Maia. ‘Alcyone often makes a
mistake in that, so I wanted to go straight through it.’

“‘What dance was that?’ asked Orion.

“‘That’s one of the “Sailor’s Knots,”’ said Taygeta. ‘There’s such a lot
of them!’

“‘Yes,’ said Alcyone, ‘and they are a good deal alike and entirely
different. Any one might be mixed. You have to tie them up, first, and
then untangle them.’

“‘She can do it perfectly well when she wants to,’ said Maia. ‘All our
family know about ocean things; but any one can make her giggle and be
silly.’

“‘What was it you said as you came?’ asked Merope, quickly. She had tact
about changing the subject.

“‘I don’t remember. Nothing much,’ said Orion.

“‘Yes, it was,’ said Taygeta. ‘Something about company.’

“‘Oh, yes. Haven’t you heard?’

“‘Heard what?’

“‘Tell us—quick!’ They all spoke together; and they should have known
better than to let Orion see how eager they were. It gave him a chance
to tease.

“‘Why—some one. Oh, I’m sure you must have heard. You don’t want me to
tell it all over again?’

“‘Yes, we do—’

“‘No, we haven’t—’

“‘Now, don’t be so mean—’

“‘Don’t ask him,’ said Maia. ‘He’s dying to tell.’

“Then they said not another word, but stood in a lovely row, locking
arms and balancing on their toes, and looked at him; and Orion looked
back at them. Then he pushed his lion’s skin up over his shoulder and
spoke to his dogs:—

“‘Come, Sirius! We’d better go and get ready before the Stranger comes,’
and he turned to go. But there were seven girls to stop him, and they
were around him in a second.

“‘No, you shall not—’

“‘Now, Orion—’

“‘Oh, _please_—’

“‘What is it?’ they asked; and he _was_ dying to tell!

“‘I can’t tell you so very much,’ he said. ‘But they say we are to have
a visitor from the Far-Away Isles.’

“‘Who says so?’

“‘Who is coming?’

“‘When will he be here?’

“‘What is he coming for?’ They were like seven interrogation points!

“‘I don’t know,’ said Orion. ‘I don’t remember who told me—and I’m not
quite sure what. Everybody but you seems to know about it.’

“‘Did you ever know any one so tiresome?’ asked Maia. And six Pleiades
girls said they never had, and ‘We’ll have to ask some one else.’

“So, off they went to try to find out what was going to happen; and how
anybody knew about it.

“It was a curious thing, but by the time they had talked with the other
Star People, they were in the same state as Orion and all the others. No
one could tell quite where he had heard it, and no one knew exactly what
he had heard; but every one had a perfectly clear impression that a
visitor was coming from the Far-Away Isles.

“When they tried to talk a little more definitely about him, they did
not altogether agree. Still, there was a strong idea that he was young
and splendid and handsome, of course; some one very distinguished in his
own country.”

“A prince, for instance?” asked Phyllisy.

“More than likely.—

“‘What do you suppose he is coming for?’ asked Maia.

“‘Perhapth, becauth he’th going to all the Thtar-Countrieth,’ said
Draco. ‘He couldn’t do that unleth he came here.’

“‘That’s so,’ said Hercules. ‘We’re one of ’em.’

“‘You’re mistaken,’ said Cepheus. ‘He’s heard about the prettiest seven
sisters in Starland, and he wants to take his choice of them back with
him. You’ll have to polish up your stars, girls, and dance your best for
him.’ (That was his idea of a joke!)

“‘Indeed we _won’t_!’ said Electra, with her nose very high. ‘We care
nothing about him.’

“‘No,’ said Alcyone. ‘We won’t do one thing!’

“‘Now, don’t you put nonsense into their heads,’ said Cassiopeia to
Cepheus. ‘He’s just coming to be friendly, and because he can; and I
think it’s lovely. We are going to do everything possible to give him a
fine welcome; and the girls will look just as pretty as they can, to be
a credit to us all.’

“‘I wish Merope’s star were brighter,’ said Celeno. ‘Do you think there
is anything we could do about it?’

“There was one thing they could do: they could talk! And they began that
very minute. It seems hardly possible that people could talk so much
about so little! No one had thought before that Merope was not quite as
she should be. If her star was faint and vanished when one looked hard
at it, that was the way of Merope’s star, and that was all there was
about it.

“But now, with the thought of stranger eyes, they began to feel that
perhaps it was extraordinary that she should be different from her
sisters. And the more they thought and talked about it, the more
important it seemed to be.

“Every one had some suggestion to make, except poor Merope herself; she
never had given it a thought, and now she declared she didn’t care.

“‘But _we_ care,’ said Maia. ‘It isn’t creditable to our family. What
will the Stranger think, to see you different from us?’

“So they talked—and talked—”

“Why didn’t they give her a star?—like Little Bear?” asked the Kitten.

“They would have given it, gladly, but Merope wouldn’t take it; and,
what is more, none of them had a star of the right kind to give.”

“They’re terribly particular about them, aren’t they?” said Phyllisy.

“They have to be,” answered the Princess. “But not in the way they were
now. Those foolish people went on talking, and fixed their eyes and
their thoughts on the star until they quite lost their senses, and it
seemed the most calamitous thing that could happen—that the splendid
Stranger should come from the Far-Away Isles and see Merope with the
puzzling star above her forehead.

“One night, at this time, Perseus came along by the river, and there he
found Merope sitting alone. She was thinking so deeply she didn’t see
him until he was close beside her.

  HE FOUND MEROPE SITTING ALONE
]

“‘Where are the rest of you?’ he asked.

“‘Dancing somewhere; I don’t know where. I came here to think.’

“That sounded pretty sad to Perseus, and he tried to say something to
cheer her.

“‘I wouldn’t worry about that star. You look all right.’

“‘I wouldn’t mind for myself,’ said Merope; ‘but I’m not going to
disgrace my family.’

“It was not long after this that the six Pleiades began to say: ‘Where
is Merope?’ and then the other Star People said: ‘Where can Merope
be?’—until the whole Sky seemed one great Question; and the nearest it
came to an answer was that Perseus had seen her sitting on the bank of
the river, quite downcast, but plainly resolved to do something.

“Cassiopeia was so worried, she lost her temper.

“‘I hope you girls are satisfied _now_’ she said. ‘Persecuting that poor
child!—and all for vanity. If anything has happened to her, I don’t know
how you’ll forgive yourselves!’

“‘You were in it, too,’ observed Perseus; and she was.

“‘I know it,’ she said, after a pause. ‘That’s how I know how they ought
to feel.’

“‘I don’t see how anything _could_ have happened to her.’ said Orion.

“‘Then where is she?’ asked Perseus. And that was what no one of them
could answer; and Starland wasn’t a happy place.”

“They could think she’d run away,” suggested the Kitten.

“Or drowned in the river,” said Miss Phyllisy in a tragic voice.

“They couldn’t bear to think it was anything serious; but it was a
mystery where she could be. They wandered from place to place, asking
one another what it could mean. And everywhere they ran across Little
Bear, roaming uneasy and disconsolate: even old Major was restless.

“‘You don’t suppose the Stranger came and carried her off to the
Far-Away Isles, do you?’ asked Andromeda.

“‘No, I do not,’ said Orion, very positively.

“‘She wouldn’t have gone! She wouldn’t have left us,’ Taygeta declared.

“‘Suppose he _took_ her?’ insisted Andromeda.

“‘_Nonsense!_’ said Cassiopeia.

“But when the night was gone without any sign of her, and a cloudless
night followed and there were only six girls in the group where there
should have been seven, what could they think? What could keep one of
the Star People from her place, unless something really had happened to
her? And when they had borne her absence for two cloudless nights, their
hearts had grown heavier and heavier, and they had almost given up any
hope of seeing their dear Merope again.”

“And they couldn’t hunt for her when it was clear,” said Phyllisy.

“No. They could only stand still and brood over it for two endless
nights.

“The third night came, cloudless still. The daylight grew dim until it
was nearly gone, and one after another, each star glimmered in its
place. When——

“Who was it?—coming—far down the Sky?

“The Star People neither spoke nor stirred while Merope came swiftly and
slipped into her place just as the last gleam of daylight faded away.
And if that didn’t show how faithful and obedient they were, what
could?”

“They had to keep all their questions in them,” said Pat.

“Yes, for a while. But about midnight thick clouds spread across the
sky; and then Merope might have answered twenty questions at once, if
she had had so many mouths.

“‘Where have you been?’ and ‘Why did you go?’

“‘Has anything hurt you?’

“‘Didn’t you know we would worry?’ That was Cassiopeia.

“‘If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you all about it,’ said Merope. ‘But you
all talk at once.’

“‘We won’t,’ said Cassiopeia. ‘Be quiet, everybody! Tell us this minute.
Who took you?’

“‘Nobody. I went myself.’

“‘That’s not the way to begin,’ said Orion. ‘Where did you go?’

“‘I went where the stars are made.’

“‘What did you do such a thing as that for?’

“Merope’s arm was around Little Bear, as he sat close beside her, and
she drooped her head until her chin touched his sharp little ear and
bent it over.

“‘I wanted a new star,’ she said very softly. ‘Wait—I’ll tell you all
about it. I thought you were ashamed of me, and I didn’t want to
disgrace you; and I thought and thought until I made up my mind to go
where they were made, and get a new one.’

“‘But how could you be gone from your place?’ asked Maia. ‘Don’t you
know it’s been clear weather?’

“‘Yes,’ said Merope. ‘But I knew my star was so dull it wasn’t likely
I’d be missed. I’m not very important.’

“‘Yes, you _are_—just as important as any of us,’ said Taygeta.

“‘And we’ve been almost crazy, missing you,’ said Cassiopeia. ‘Even
Major had the fidgets. I think our feelings ought to be considered.’

“‘I know it. I’m sorry now. I didn’t think of that.’

“‘But tell us what you did,’ said Orion. It seemed almost impossible to
keep them to the subject.

“‘I will. You know the place—off that way,’ and she pointed over the
river. ‘I knew all I had to do was to keep going straight on until I
came there. So I slipped off quietly, when you were all busy.’

“‘If I’d seen you start, you wouldn’t have gone,—unless I went too,’
said Hercules. ‘It wasn’t safe—a girl all alone.’

“‘But what happened? Did anything frighten you?’

“‘No. Only the dark, and cold.’

“‘_Dark!_ Was it really _dark_, Merope?’

“‘Well—I never heard anything like _that_!’ said Cassiopeia.

(“The reason they were so astonished is because it never is dark in
Starland. There is always the starlight.” The Princess answered the
question the Others didn’t ask, except by looks. “Oh—h!” they murmured.)

“‘Yes, it was,’ said Merope, ‘part of the time. Not at first. After I
crossed the river I went straight on for a good while; it was about like
this,’ she waved her hand. ‘It was all right until it was dark—’ Then
she stopped talking just at the most interesting place.

“‘Oh, go _on_, Merope!’ said Alcyone. ‘Where was it dark?’

“‘I don’t believe I can explain it. It came all at once—everywhere—as if
I had walked off the edge—into the sea; only there wasn’t any sea. There
wasn’t anything!’

“‘There was _you_, wasn’t there?’ asked Perseus.

“‘Yes. But I knew there wouldn’t be, long.’

“‘I wish you would explain things as you go along,’ said Cassiopeia.

“‘I’ll try,’ said Merope. ‘But it’s very perplexing. It was perfectly
dark; you never saw any dark like it—’

“‘You can’t _see_ dark, ever,’ said Orion. ‘That’s what it is.’

“‘That’s what I meant. You couldn’t see it; even my own little stars
were out’ (she glanced at her dress), ‘and it was cold—_deathly_! and
not a sound—and I didn’t know which way anything was. I was just colder
and colder, and still—and I knew, someway, I was going out.’

“‘Out where?’ asked Hercules.

“‘Nowhere,’ said Merope. ‘Like a candle.’

“‘Goodness! Weren’t you frightened?’ asked Andromeda.

“‘Yes. And I tried to think what to do, but I couldn’t. I kept growing
colder and stiller—I couldn’t move. Then I thought about all of you, and
there came a little warmth inside, and I knew the cold couldn’t reach
me.’

“‘Because love was stronger than cold or dark?’ suggested Andromeda.

“‘Yes; that was it. Nothing could put it out.’

“‘Then how did you find your way out?’ asked Cepheus, after a minute.

“‘That was easy. When I thought of you and home, something pulled me; so
I knew which way you were.’

“‘Then you came back,’ said Taygeta.

“‘No, I didn’t. I couldn’t come without the star. And I thought if I
kept going in the direction I started, I’d come to the right place. So I
kept on, the way I didn’t want to go.’

“‘Now, I call that downright clever!’ said Draco. ‘It thowth what it ith
to uthe your reathon.’

“‘Merope always was the brightest one of our family, really,’ said Maia.
‘What did you do then?’

“‘Kept on. And after I came out of the dark I was not very far from the
new stars.’

“‘Oh, tell us about them!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘How are they made? Tell us
every single thing!’

“‘I can’t,’ said Merope. ‘I’m not good at understanding such things.
There were a great many—all colors. I think they are made of something
very light—and spread out—it was like fog, in places; then, in other
places, it was whirling—I don’t know what makes it begin to whirl: then
it seemed to thicken up, when it whirled—’

“‘How, thicken up?’ asked Orion.

“‘I can’t explain; but the star-fog collected and drew together into a
ball, and that was the star. There were all sizes and kinds. Sometimes
there was one in the centre and more little stars whirling around in
rings outside it. And trails of fog—I never could describe it. You would
have to see for yourself. And they sang. Oh, it was beautiful!’ Then she
stopped again, to recall it; and that was trying to the others, because
she certainly did not make things very clear to them.

“‘Now, Merope,’ said Cassiopeia, ‘you give your mind to it, and describe
things a little better. I wish I’d gone myself. I could tell what I’d
seen and heard. What was the singing like?’

“‘It wasn’t like anything,’ said Merope. ‘That’s why I can’t tell you.
It was quite, quite beautiful. Every star—when it whirled—seemed to have
its own song—’

“‘Like tops?’ asked Perseus.

“‘Perhaps, a little—’ said Merope, doubtfully; ‘and all the songs made
one; and—I don’t know what it said, but I think—’ then she hesitated.

“‘_Go on!_’ said Maia.

“‘I think it said, they were glad they were alive.’

“‘Of course,’ said Cassiopeia. ‘Then what?’

“‘Then it was time for me to come home.’

“‘Didn’t you dread coming through the dark place again?’ asked Electra.

“‘Yes. But I knew I could get through. And it wasn’t so hard as going;
all I had to do was to come the way I wanted to. So I just came.’

“‘But, Merope,’ said Andromeda, ‘where is your new star?’

“Then every one of the Star People looked at Merope, and saw—what not
one of them had noticed before, they were so glad to have her back—her
own, strange, vanishing star still glinted above her forehead.

“‘Couldn’t you find the right kind?’ asked Taygeta.

“‘Weren’t you allowed to have it?’ asked Orion.

“‘Did you lothe it, coming back?’ asked Draco.

“‘Answer, Merope!’ said Cassiopeia.

“Merope looked confused, and she bent over Little Bear once more (he was
a very convenient Little Bear), but she had to speak.

“‘There were plenty of stars,’ she said slowly, ‘and I might have taken
one, but when I saw them—all so splendid—they didn’t seem like me; and
then I thought you all loved me, and I knew you didn’t care really, for
the star; and I liked my own best. So—I just came home.’

“‘We’re glad, Merope,’ said Andromeda. ‘We love you best like this.’

“And every one of the Star People felt the same.”

“We do too, Dearie,”said Phyllisy. “That was the best ending.”

Pat and the Kitten wriggled and nodded, and the Princess smiled at them,
but she held up her finger for them to wait for the very end.

“Then it was Merope’s turn to ask a question. But it didn’t occur to her
until a little later.

“The sisters were dancing—the very prettiest and most twirly of the
‘Sailor’s Knots’—and Merope was the centre of the twist, when she
stopped short and asked:—

  THE SISTERS WERE DANCING—THE VERY PRETTIEST AND MOST TWIRLY OF THE
    “SAILOR’S KNOTS”
]

“‘When will the Stranger be here?’

“The Star People looked at each other in complete astonishment. They had
forgotten all about him.

“‘He isn’t coming,’ said Orion, after a pause.

“‘How do you know he isn’t?’ asked Hercules.

“‘The same way we knew he _was_,’ answered Orion.

“‘I’d jutht like to know who thtarted that thtory,’ said Draco. ‘I
believe it wath a comet!’

“‘So do I,’ said Cassiopeia.”

“Truly was it?” asked the Kitten.

“What do you think?” asked the Princess.

Then all the questions they had kept inside of them began to come out,
and they lasted down the hill—very jerky, on account of having to run or
slip—and most of the long way back. But there was time beside to gather
more leaves to take the place of those they had forgotten and left safe
under small stones on the hill-top!

There were thousands and thousands of them fallen, too beautiful to pass
over, so it was just as well.

                                   XI
                           TORQUILLON’S LAIR

Precisely when the clock had struck three there came three raps on the
door. (There had been shuffling, whispering noises, and a squeak like a
mouse before, very small, but different from the sound of the rain
against the windows.)

“Come in!” said the Princess; and there entered the very ones she
expected to see, because it was an appointment.

The first thing, she wanted to ask them if they didn’t think it would be
comforting to have a fire in the fireplace, to look at.

The Others instantly thought it would. Miss Phyllisy shivered her
shoulders when she thought it, and the Kitten shivered hers when she saw
Miss Phyllisy. But Pat did not shiver, because none of them was truly
chilly, only it was such a disconsolate day, with cold gray coming in at
the windows and the corners dark, and large doleful brown leaves hanging
sodden from a branch and beating back and forth in the rain.

The Princess was sure they would feel that way about the fire, and she
thought they wouldn’t mind the trouble of starting it themselves, it was
so jolly to see the first blaze. And they didn’t mind in the least; they
loved it.

It was laid ready—large logs and small pieces to kindle it, but they
were very busy for several minutes, changing the small pieces as Miss
Phyllisy wanted them, because she had a talent for fires.

When it was arranged to suit her, the Kitten struck the match and
lighted the paper—and they all stood quite still while a flame stole
around, weaving in and out, and the blackened paper drew up where it
passed. A round puffing smoke rose above and sharp red tongues flipped
out at the top—a fine crackle began to sound—then came a broad roar. The
next minute flames were wrapping around the great logs, the whole length
of them, and blazing up the chimney, and the room to the farthest corner
and across the ceiling was full of moving firelight, with little fires
winking from everything shiny in it—even the raindrops chasing down the
panes. It was surprising, the change it made. Now, the miserable day
outside only made them more cosy and contented, here by Miss Phyllisy’s
beautiful fire, where their Princess sat ready to tell them a most
especial story that she would love to have them hear. But, as Prudence
said, it wouldn’t be wise to begin while the fire needed attention, and
there was no hurry. So they watched the first blaze pass off; then the
logs settled and fell apart, and they poked them and put on one more,
and Pat set the fender in place.

The new log sputtered a minute before the blaze began to eat it. They
watched a few minutes longer, to be sure it was all right; and it was.
The Princess said she never had seen a more satisfactory fire,—and
likely to last.

So Pat and the Kitten curled up in the pillows on the broad couch in the
corner near the fireplace, and Phyllisy sat on a stool at the end of the
hearth, where she could reach the poker without interrupting, if it
should be necessary. The Princess was in her large chair, drawn up a
little way off. The rings on her clasped hands glittered, and there was
a big rosette on the toe of her slipper, pointed out toward the glow.
The firelight shone in her eyes and they looked very joyful, and her
lips were smiling before she began to speak.

“The Jane Ellen,” said the Princess softly, making the name long, as if
she liked to say it, and the Others wriggled as if they liked to
hear,—“the Jane Ellen was a very busy ship, and made important journeys,
carrying splendid cargoes from port to port; but she sailed so fast when
she was going straight on that the Captain always had time to stop on
the way to attend to any little thing that needed it, or to be obliging
and kind—like the time when they arranged about the Sailor’s Star.

“Now if you had sailed on the Jane Ellen on one of the most interesting
cruises she ever made, you would have come to a place where a long point
of land ran out for miles into the sea. The point ended in a great rock
that looked like the head and shoulders of a lion, coming out of the
forest that covered the hills back of him, and roaring because he
couldn’t get across to the point of a very large island that lay in the
sea opposite. There was another great rock that made the point of the
island (as if they were two gate posts), and this rock was the head of a
man, frowning and dark; and one would hardly know which he was angriest
with; the Lion, or any one who tried to pass through the gateway.

“Besides the large island, there were a great many smaller ones—like a
flock of ducks—and between them the water was shallow. So ships that
wanted to pass that way had either to go through the dark Gateway,
between the Roaring Lion and the Frowning Man, or else turn away to the
south and sail miles and miles out of their course, around that whole
flock of islands. And a great many ships did want to go that way; for it
led to a land where the pearls were as large as gooseberries and all
lovely tropical things grew because they couldn’t help it.

“It isn’t pleasant to have even a rock man look as if he would like to
bite off one’s bowsprit, or crowd one over into the jaws of a roaring
lion; but they were only rocks with a good passage between, and no
captain who was in the least bit of a hurry would have hesitated one
minute, or even thought of sailing around those hundreds of islands on
their account. But every captain who sailed the sea knew that, once
inside that Gateway, he would come into the haunt of Torquillon, the
Waterspout. And that was reason enough for any ship to go miles the
other way.”

(Torquillon was a stranger to the Others, but they nodded as if they
thought it was an excellent reason. The story was beginning in a way
that made them very quiet, not wanting to interrupt.)

“Now when the Jane Ellen passed that way, if the Captain were not on
deck and the Mate was commanding the ship, he liked to sail close to the
Gateway instead of taking the shortest way to go around the islands,
because he was not so old as the Captain, and he never had had so much
as a glimpse of Torquillon.

“This time that I’ve begun to tell you about, the Captain was taking a
nap, and Taffy had things his own way as they came into that part of the
ocean.

“‘How’s the wind, Quartermaster?’ he said to the man at the wheel.

“‘Sou’west-by-south, sir,’ answered the Quartermaster.

“Taffy looked up at the sails and the clouds and out over the sea—as if
he were making up his mind, instead of knowing all the time what he
meant to do! Then he said to the Quartermaster:—

“‘Keep her as she is until we reach this point,’ and he made a little
mark on the chart, right near the large island; ‘then we’ll make a long
run to the south.’

“‘Ay, ay, sir,’ said the Quartermaster. But when the Mate turned away to
walk for’ard, he drew up one side of his face so it was all bias, and
winked at the Bos’n!

“Taffy went into his own cabin, and came out again with a long spy-glass
in his hand. He walked to the foot of the foremast-shrouds and rested
the spy-glass in the ratlines to steady it, and looked toward the place
where the Gateway led into Torquillon’s Lair.

“And the Jane Ellen was sailing so fast that he hadn’t been looking long
before he saw a little gray hump on the edge of the water, that he knew
was the large island. Then he put down the glass and waited a little
while. The next time he looked, both the island and the mainland showed
plainly, with a little, little gap between.

“But he never could spend much time doing what he liked without being
interrupted, so very soon he put down the glass and went below to see
why Tom Green hadn’t polished the binnacle.

“While he was gone the Jane Ellen kept sailing on; and by the time he
came back the Gateway showed even without the glass. And when Taffy had
the glass steady once more and looked through it, he saw a dark speck on
the water, outside the Lion’s head. He looked for a moment, then he
called, ‘Bos’n!’

“‘Ay, ay, sir,’ said the Bos’n, coming up. Taffy handed him the glass.

“‘See what you make of that?’

“The Bos’n took the glass and looked carefully. Then he rubbed the small
end with a loose fold of his shirt, and looked again.

“‘It looks to me like a brig, sir. She’s hove-to; and she’s lost some of
her riggin’,’ he said.

“Taffy took the glass, and while he was looking, who should come along
but the Captain! He had just stepped out of his cabin, and was surprised
to see the island so near.

“‘Why are we here, Mr. Morganwg?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t we out of our
course?’

“‘We are, sir, a little,’ said Taffy. ‘But that’s because the wind is
sou’west-by-south. I thought we’d make better time this way.’

“‘And go by that Gateway, too,’ said the Captain; and he looked at the
Bos’n and laughed. The Bos’n laughed too, so Taffy felt a wee bit
foolish, and he thought he’d rather talk about something else. So he
said, ‘There’s a ship lying over there, in distress.’

“‘Let me see,’ said the Captain, taking the glass. ‘Sure enough! We must
go and see what is the matter.’”

“Everybody knew he wanted to go, didn’t they?” said Pat.

“Everybody,” said the Princess. “But they were all eager, now, to go to
the rescue.

“So the Jane Ellen sailed on fast, and drew nearer and nearer to the
brig; and when they were near enough to see, she was a sight!

“Some of her rigging was gone, and halyards and bowlines and braces and
all kinds of ropes and sails were trailing in the water; and a flag of
distress flip-flip-flipping in the breeze over it all.

“It was the Reindeer brig, and her captain was a friend of the captain
of the Jane Ellen. So when they were hove-to, beside the Reindeer, the
Captain—with the Mate standing by—was very glad to welcome his friend on
board.

“‘Now, tell us all about what has happened to the Reindeer,’ he said.

“The captain of the brig was a short man with bright black eyes, and he
_hated_ to wait for anything. When he wanted a thing, he wanted it that
very minute; and when he sent a man on an errand he often went after him
before he had time to come back, because it seemed so long to him. His
name was Gryller, but Skipper seemed to suit him exactly, so he was very
seldom called Captain Gryller.

“When he came aboard the Jane Ellen, he could hardly wait for the proper
greetings to be over before he began to tell his story. He spoke very
fast; the words pattered, clean, and there sounded a great many _rr_’s
in them.

“‘It’s that Waterspout!’ he said. ‘He’s played the mischief with my
rrigging!’

“‘What? Torquillon?’ asked the Captain.

“‘Certainly. Did you ever hear of any other waterspout hereabouts? I
didn’t. He took my main-to’gal’n’mast at the first whack!’

“‘But where was he?’ asked the Captain.

“‘Chasing _me_!’ said the Skipper, indignantly.

“‘Out here?’ asked the Captain, perfectly surprised. And he looked at
the Lion and the Man, to see if Torquillon were peeping out.

“‘No!’ exclaimed the Skipper, loudly. ‘Inside.’

“‘_Inside!_’ said the Captain, even louder. ‘What were you doing there?’

“‘Going through, of course!’ shouted the Skipper. ‘Do you suppose I was
trying to anchorr?’ and he almost danced on the deck, he was so
impatient.

“The Captain looked at him. Then he said in his ordinary voice:—

“‘We’re neither of us deaf, and there isn’t a gale of wind; and will you
please begin at the beginning, and tell me what you did do?’

“‘That’s just what I was trying to do; but you interrupted.’

“‘Because you began in the middle.’

“‘How could any one begin in the middle? The place where you begin _is_
the beginning!’

“‘Well, what made you go through there, anyway?’ asked the Captain. (He
wasn’t quite sure whether the beginning was the middle or the end or the
other end, he felt so tangled up.)

“‘I didn’t go through,’ insisted the Skipper. ‘Didn’t I just tell you?’

“‘Then, will you tell me what you did do?’

“‘I starrted to go.’

“‘Why?’

“‘Why does a hen run across the road?’ asked the Skipper.

“‘To get to the other side,’ answered the Captain; and, ‘Because she
can’t go ’round it,’ said Taffy.

“‘Which is it?’ asked the Captain.

“‘Both,’ said the Skipper. ‘I wanted to get to the other side, and I
didn’t want to go around all those islands. It’s ridiculous, with that
good passage through, to go miles out of the way because of that
Waterspout—and I hadn’t the time to spend.’

“‘I don’t see that you’ve saved very much,’ said the Captain.

“‘I should have—if I’d gone through. It’s all very well for you; but
every ship is not as fast as the Jane Ellen. Anyway, I made up my mind
to try, and I got halfway through before that fellow caught me. But then
he did smash me up like kingdom-come! and I had to box-haul her, and
come back.’

“‘What do you want to do now?’ asked the Captain.

“‘I hoped a ship would come along and let me have some extra spars to
make the Reindeer ship-shape; and then—I’ve got a Plan;’ and he stopped,
and looked very mysterious and important.

“‘Are you going in again?’ asked Taffy, hoping he would say Yes—and he
did.

“‘Yes, I am. And you’re going too.’

“‘I don’t know whether I am, or not,’ said the Captain. ‘What for?’

“‘I want to bottle up that Waterspout, and clear that passage so ships
can go through there safely.’

“‘You don’t want to do much!’ said the Captain. ‘Have you thought how
you could do it?’

“‘Yes, I know all about it. It’s no use to run him down; for he just
spills and comes up again; and you can’t tie him up. But I noticed,
about halfway through the passage there is a little island. It’s hardly
large enough to call an island—just a flat-topped rock, not much above
the water. In that rock there is a deep hollow. Now, I think we might
lead Torquillon such a chase that he would trip over the island and
spill into the hole. Then we could cover him over, quick, with a big
tarpaulin, and afterward roof him in solid, so he never could get out.
Don’t you think that would be worth spending a little time to do?’

“‘Yes,’ said the Captain. ‘If we could do it.’

“‘We can’t, of course, if we don’t try!’ said the Skipper. ‘Will you do
it?’

“‘One thing at a time,’ said the Captain in that sensible way that is so
annoying when one has an idea. ‘We’ll rig the Reindeer first—and
consider about it.’

“And that was all he would say, though it seemed as if the Skipper
couldn’t stand it, not to have it settled that very minute. But the
Captain lent him some extra spars and his ship’s carpenter and some men,
and they set to work; and before they knew it, almost, the Reindeer was
ship-shape again, and looked as good as new.

“Except the Jane Ellen—that was a full-rigged ship anyway—there wasn’t a
prettier little brig on the high seas. Captain Gryller had had her
painted brown, dappled with lighter spots on her sides and two large
light spots on her stern, because he meant to call her the Reindeer. And
he didn’t care whether that was like a reindeer or a moose or a stag or
a wapiti, or none of them; he liked it that way.

“While they were working, the Captain considered. And the more he
considered, the more he didn’t know whether it would be one bit of use;
but the less he wanted to go sailing away around all those islands
without trying to bottle up that waterspout and clear the passage for
all the ships that should come after.

“And Taffy never considered a minute. He didn’t know, and he didn’t much
care, whether they could bottle up anything, or not; he thought only,
some way or other, he _must_ go in at that Gateway between the Lion and
the Man, and see what was inside. So when the Captain called him into
his cabin to consult with him, I think you can guess what kind of advice
Taffy gave.”

(The children looked as if they could very easily. They would have given
the same themselves.)

“When the Skipper came aboard for his answer, he found there was no
persuasion needed; but they could begin at once to lay their plans very
carefully for what they should do when they were once inside. The
Skipper drew a chart, the way he remembered it, and they laid their
course, just how they would sail, and settled everything so that there
could be no mistake.

“At last the Captain said: ‘There! I think that’s all. And we can make a
start the first thing in the morning.’

“‘_To-morrow morning!_’ shouted the Skipper. ‘Shiver my timbers! Do you
think we can wait forever?’

“‘Nobody wants to wait so long as that,’ said the Captain. ‘But it’s too
late to go in to-day. You don’t want to be caught in there in the dark.’

“‘Who’s going to be caught?’ asked the Skipper. ‘I’m not. And we’re
going in _to-day_!’

“‘We’re going in _to-morrow_,’ said the Captain, just as firmly. The
Skipper turned huffy.

“‘I’d like to know who’s planning this,’ he said.

“‘You are,’ said the Captain. ‘And I don’t think it’s much of a
plan—whoever made it! And if you’re so set, we’ll go now,—the time may
be as good as the plan,—but it’s too late!’

“‘It’s nearly the longest days in the year,’ said the Skipper. As if
that wouldn’t have made it all the easier to wait for morning!”

“Then it was a wrong argument,” remarked Phyllisy.

“Yes; but he didn’t think long enough to see it.

“So, because he was so impatient, just after three bells of the second
watch of the afternoon had struck, the Jane Ellen and the Reindeer
weighed their anchors and made sail, and advanced side by side, like two
white swans, to the Gateway that led into Torquillon’s Lair.

“There were always clouds hanging over it; and they lowered dark over
the Frowning Man, so he scowled harder than ever as they passed out of
the sunshine that made their sails shine white as snowdrifts, into the
shadow of the cloud that suddenly turned them gray.

“But they sailed boldly by, close under his nose; and Taffy looked
curiously, to see what sort of place they had come into.

“It was a fine open stretch of sea. The mainland curved back from the
point into a great bay, so large that the point at the farther side of
it was only a distant gray streak. The flock of islands lay at the
right, and separated it from the wide ocean. High mountains rose up on
the mainland, and the islands, too, were like mountaintops; but graceful
palm trees and bananas and other lovely green things grew among the
craggy rocks.

“Now, as they passed into the shadow of the great dark cloud and sailed
under the nose of the Rock Man, a little wind, that lived in a cave on
the large island, cried:—

“‘Whoooooo-uuuuuu-eeeEEE—!’ and struck, first the Jane Ellen, then the
Reindeer, on the starboard bow, so that they heeled over to port; but
they went steadily on.

“Then another little wind, that lived in a rocky gorge on the point of
land back of the roaring Lion, began to whisper:—

“‘Wh-h-i-i-is-sssss-sh-sSH—!’ and blew the Reindeer and the Jane Ellen
along from over the stern. The sails shivered and the sailors swung the
yards; then the sails filled and the ships went right on.

“Another wind lived in a beautiful valley, where a waterfall came
tumbling down, like a white ribbon, over the edge of the cliff, and
while the first two winds were still whispering and crying, this wind
woke up and shouted:

“‘Whooooooooo-eeeeeee-ooooop!’ and came tearing over the green water,
splashing it up in white foam under his feet as he ran to meet the Jane
Ellen and the Reindeer, that were swinging on, down the wide channel.

“Then, wakened by the whispering and shouting and crying, other little
winds came racing out of their crannies on the islands and in the
mountains, and all scurried after the Reindeer and the Jane Ellen, until
they couldn’t tell, to save them, which was the lee and which the
weather shore! And these winds were little, only compared with the great
winds that travel over the whole Earth. They were large enough for this
land-locked sea; and the Jane Ellen and the Reindeer found them all they
cared to meet. But the two ships were sailed so well they rode weatherly
under storm-sails; and by continually trimming sails and bracing yards
and luffing and doing numberless other things that sailors know all
about—and you and I don’t understand a bit of—they kept on their course
down the channel, looking on every side for Torquillon, the selfish
Waterspout who claimed it for his own, and wouldn’t let any one pass
through. As if there weren’t room for him and them too!

“They had not gone far before the whistling of the winds, like barking
watch-dogs, roused Torquillon; and he raised his head to see who was
coming into his waters.

“The Captain was sailing the Jane Ellen himself, so Taffy was free to
watch; and far ahead, just under a black cloud that hung very low, he
saw the dark water rise in a mound.

“That was only for a moment, and it dropped back again. But the winds
had seen their Master; and—as if he had called them to him—they rushed
from all sides, whistling and crying and whooping, and left the Jane
Ellen and the Reindeer with sails drooping in the sudden calm, while
they circled to the spot where Torquillon’s head had pushed above the
water.

“And as they reached him he rose with one powerful leap from the waves,
and caught the dark sagging cloud, pulling it down behind his head,
swinging and twisting as the winds flung themselves upon him, and filled
the cloud that floated like a banner and served for a sail. And then he
caught sight of the two ships, and the chase began!

“Down the channel he came flying; and the Reindeer and the Jane Ellen
waited, side by side, their sails hanging idly in the dead calm, and the
sailors all standing by the braces to be ready when the winds struck
them. And now Taffy had his wish; for no one ever had a better chance to
see a monstrous Waterspout.

“As he whirled and twisted, his long trailing robes wound close about
his feet, then curved out again, smooth and black in the water, like the
curves of a lily-petal. They looked quite black to Taffy; but as the
light struck through the edges and thin folds, he saw that they were
green—like the green water under him. And following after, leaping,
snarling, jumping at the edges of his robes, the white foaming waves
joined in the chase, and came rushing, whirling down on the two
motionless ships.

“‘Wh-iiii-sss-shoooouuuuuu-eeeeEEE—!’ shrieked the winds, and the next
instant Torquillon would have had them—but just in time the sails
filled; and off flew the Jane Ellen to the right, and off darted the
Reindeer to the left, and left him hanging in the wind, because he

  DOWN THE CHANNEL HE CAME FLYING
]

couldn’t chase both at once, and didn’t know which to follow first.

“But it didn’t take him long to decide. He had seen the Reindeer before;
and it made him very angry to see that she had come back as good as new.
He swung his black banner high over his head, so that it caught the wind
from the large island, and tore after the white spots on the stern of
the brown Reindeer, that showed plainly although it was beginning to be
dusk.

“The Captain had said it was too late to go in that night; and here was
their work just begun, and very little more daylight to do it in, but he
didn’t say, ‘I told you so,’ even to Taffy; but did his best to carry
out the plan.

“When Torquillon was almost within reach of the Reindeer, he glanced
aside and saw the Jane Ellen slipping along down the channel, and
seeming about to escape him altogether. With a howl of rage he turned
and flew after her instead. Then the Reindeer had her chance, and she
turned down the channel as if she were going to escape. So, crossing and
turning, the two ships dodged under the nose of that angry Waterspout,
who was in such a rage it was very easy to bewilder him.

“And always they drew him nearer and nearer to the flat little island
with the hollowed rock where they planned to seal him up forever, when
he should have tripped into it.

“The winds shrieked and screamed from all sides, and the clouds pressed
down, thick and black. But just before they reached the island, the
sunset light broke through a narrow rift in the clouds, and shone
through the gap between the Lion and the Rock Man; and all the foaming
crests of the waves and the edges of Torquillon’s robes turned to fiery
gold; and down his dark sides and in the black curves about his feet
were blood-red streaks; and the great sable banner over his head burst
into crimson flame!

“Then the Jane Ellen passed the island, and Torquillon tore after in his
crimson fury, never heeding where he went—and the rock directly in his
path. The Reindeer scudded after, the sailors on both ships standing by
to lower the boats, with the wide tarpaulin ready to cover him over. And
the Skipper fairly danced up and down on the deck in his excitement and
delight to think how near they were to success. And Torquillon was
almost on the rock!—when up went his feet, and on went the flaming
scarlet sail—with the purple hollow on the side away from the sun—and
carried him clean over, without even touching it; though the waves that
followed crashed and boiled to the very top, and covered the rock from
sight!

“Then the clouds closed in—black and heavy—and night had come almost in
a minute. And there were the Jane Ellen and the Reindeer in the middle
of an inland sea, without a star to guide them, the winds raging and
shrieking about, and a furious Waterspout at their heels!”

The Princess stopped—as if that could possibly be the end of it!

“Oh, Dearie! You can’t have the heart to leave them like that,” Phyllisy
remonstrated. “We’re so excited.”

“I’m pretty excited myself, Miss Phyllisy,” said the Princess. “I’d like
to rest a few minutes. What should you say to a few chocolates? You
might look at the box, at least, if you don’t care to eat them. It’s a
very pretty one.”

“Where is it?” asked Pat.

When she brought it to the Princess, they all crowded around her chair
and admired the outside of the box. Then she lifted the cover slowly, to
show the chocolates packed in rows of different shapes with crimpy
paper, and little tongs to pick up the kind they wanted. And the
Princess let them go down to the under layers to see if they were
different.

Still, they were very anxious to go on and find out what happened; and
when the Princess had rested and Phyllisy had attended to the fire—it
would have needed it soon any way—they went back to their old places and
the Princess began again.

“You know how Old Sol stays a little while every year in each of the
Houses of the Zodiac?

“It happened, when he glanced through the long slit in the clouds at
Torquillon and the two ships, that he was making his visit to the Gemini
Brothers; and that was very fortunate, because it gave him an idea.

“It was only a glimpse he had of that chase, but it was enough to show
him that it was going to be hard times for the Jane Ellen and the
Reindeer unless something were done for them before it was too late. And
Castor and Pollux were right at hand and able to do it, so it was the
most natural thing that he should send them.”

“And they’re specially for sailors—friends,” remarked Pat.

“Specially; Sol knew it. ‘Now’s your chance,’ he said, ‘you
ground-and-lofty tumblers. Tumble right down, or that wicked Torquillon
will have the Jane Ellen and the Reindeer made into kindling wood—if
they don’t run ashore first, in the dark.’

“The darkness came so suddenly on the ships when the clouds closed down
in the West, that it was bewildering. And they were so surprised and
disappointed that Torquillon had not fallen into the trap they had laid
for him that they hardly knew what to do.

“Fortunately, the same darkness that confused them confused him, too;
but it was not long before the chase began again. Now the ships had no
thought of anything but of how they should escape: and whether it was
better to go back or forward they didn’t know. The darkness grew blacker
and blacker, and they flew wildly back and forth—until they had no idea
where they were, nor where the entrance lay, and could only guess where
Torquillon was by the shrieking of the wild winds.

“Once he passed so close to the Reindeer that he nipped off her
flying-jib-boom. But the flying jib was not set, of course, in that
weather, so it didn’t much matter; and he carried a trysail on the Jane
Ellen out of the gaskets with a crack like a cannon. Still they were
managing to escape him, when, as the ships happened to be close
together, and Torquillon was raging down the channel some distance away,
trying to find them in the darkness, Taffy heard a sound—different from
the screeching of the winds in the rigging—and it seemed to come from
the foremast of the Jane Ellen.

“As he listened to the sound, like music, he looked up at the place from
whence it came, and above the ends of the topsail yards were two glowing
flames of pure white fire that threw a faint light on the deck, and the
music grew clearer to his ears.

“And in a moment, all the men on both ships were looking and listening.
But some could hear only the wind in the rigging and see two little
lights hovering about the mast. Some could see and hear a little more;
and Taffy,—because he was a Welshman and had a young heart,—more plainly
than all, saw, standing lightly on the yards, high, high in the air, the
twin brothers, Castor and Pollux! Young and strong, and with star-tipped
spears in their hands and helmets on their heads with the white, flaming
star streaming from the top like a plume.

“The Captain, who had a young heart, heard the music of their singing,
though he couldn’t tell the words, but he looked at Taffy—and his eyes
were shining, so the Captain knew he understood, and that the beautiful
Star People wanted to save them, and that Taffy was the one

  STANDING LIGHTLY ON THE YARDS, HIGH, HIGH IN THE AIR, THE TWIN
    BROTHERS CASTOR AND POLLUX
]

to help them do it. So he said softly, ‘Mr. Morganwg, you may take
command.’

“Taffy only nodded, he was watching and listening so intently. And the
Shining Brothers were singing:—

                     “Follow through the darkness
                       Where the Lion roars,
                     Where the Rock Man, scowling,
                       Marks Torquillon’s shores;

                     “Through the Gateway flying,
                       From his fury free,—
                     Follow, Taffy, follow
                       To the open sea!

“They pointed their star-tipped spears and Taffy gave his orders: and
fast and faster sped the Jane Ellen through the black waters, the
Reindeer following, led by the gleaming flames on her topsail
yards—though the Skipper couldn’t hear a sound of the music nor see
anything more than the little lights, because he wasn’t a Welshman, and
if he had a young heart, he was too impatient to listen to what it said.

“Torquillon, too, saw the little flames of fire, and saw how fast they
flew, and he knew the ships were escaping. And with the winds howling
and shrieking (they were hoarse by this time, you may believe, for they
had had no rest for two hours), and the waves snapping at his heels, he
came tearing once more up the channel—after the Jane Ellen and the
Reindeer, that were flying for their lives!

“And when they reached the Gateway and slipped by the roaring Lion’s
jaws, Torquillon was so close he couldn’t stop himself, and dashed his
whole height against the towering rock!

“It was like the crash of a hundred great breakers at once on a rocky