He nodded his head silently, for he was afraid to speak to her, and set off through the wood by her side, still clasping the flowers to his breast.

“What were you looking at when I found you?” she asked.

“The palace—­the fairy palace,” the boy muttered.

“The palace?” the girl repeated.  “Why, that’s not a palace; that’s where I live.”

The boy looked at her with new awe; if she were a fairy——­ But the girl had noticed that his feet made no sound beside her shoes.

“Don’t the thorns prick your feet, wood-boy?” she asked; but the boy said nothing, and they were both silent for a while, the girl looking about her keenly as she walked, and the boy watching her face.  Presently they came to a wide pool where a little tinkling fountain threw bubbles to the hidden fish.

“Can you swim?” she said to the boy.

He shook his head.

“It’s a pity,” said the girl; “we might have had a bathe.  It would be rather fun in the dark, but it’s pretty deep there.  We’d better get on to the fairy ring.”

The moon had flung queer shadows across the glade in which the ring lay, and when they stood on the edge listening intently the wood seemed to speak to them with a hundred voices.

“You can take hold of my hand, if you like,” said the girl, in a whisper.

The boy dropped his flowers about his white feet and felt for the girl’s hand in the dark.  Soon it lay in his own, a warm live thing, that stirred a little with excitement.

“I’m not afraid,” the girl said; and so they waited.

* * * * *

The man came upon them suddenly from among the silver birches.  He had a knapsack on his back and his hair was as long as a tramp’s.  At sight of him the girl almost screamed, and her hand trembled in the boy’s.  Some instinct made him hold it tighter.

“What do you want?” he muttered, in his hoarse voice.

The man was no less astonished than the children.

“What on earth are you doing here?” he cried.  His voice was mild and reassuring, and the girl answered him promptly.

“I came out to look for fairies.”

“Oh, that’s right enough,” commented the man; “and you,” he said, turning to the boy, “are you after fairies, too?  Oh, I see; picking flowers.  Do you mean to sell them?”

The boy shook his head.

“For my sister,” he said, and stopped abruptly.

“Is your sister fond of flowers?”

“Yes; she’s dead.”

The man looked at him gravely.

“That’s a phrase,” he said, “and phrases are the devil.  Who told you that dead people like flowers?”

“They always have them,” said the boy, blushing for shame of his pretty thought.

“And what are you looking for?” the girl interrupted.

The man made a mocking grimace, and glanced around the glade as if he were afraid of being overheard.