Then Everychild looked at the other stranger.  She was a lady, and very distinguished looking.  He did not recognize her, though he felt at once that she was a very important person.  She was dressed all in shimmering white.  She was very fair and her hair was dressed beautifully.  She wore a band about her hair and there was a jewel in it, like a star.  She wore a little mask over her eyes so that you could not be sure at once whether she was a kind person or not.  She sat at a spinning wheel, and the wheel went round and round without making any noise.  She was spinning something.  She looked very tranquil.

Everychild was becoming greatly excited.  He touched the cook on the hand.  “Didn’t it seem to you to get much lighter?” he asked.

“Lighter?  No.  It’s getting darker,” she replied.

“And—­and didn’t you hear any music, either?”

“I heard nothing.”

It made him feel almost forlorn to have the cook say she had not noticed anything.  He drew closer to her.  “Never mind the kite now,” he said.  “I want you . . .  Oh, don’t you see anything at all?  Please look!” He stood with one finger on his lip, staring at Father Time and the Masked Lady.

She regarded him almost with alarm.  “Lord bless the child, what’s coming over him?” she exclaimed.  “There’s nothing there!” She followed the direction of his eyes, and then she looked at him with an indulgent smile.  “There, put your kite away,” she said.  “It’s all right now except for that rent in it.  I’ll mend that to-morrow.  And try to be a good boy.  You mustn’t be fanciful, you know!”

She patted him on the back and then she left the room.

He stood quite forlorn, watching her depart.  Then with nervous haste he made as if to follow her.  But at the door, which she had closed, he stopped.  You could tell that he was making up his mind to do something.  Then he turned slowly so that he faced Father Time and the Masked Lady.  Presently he took a step in their direction.  And at length, with a very great effort, he spoke.

“Please—­tell me who you are!” he said.

It was Father Time who replied.  He replied in a voice which was quite thrilling, though not at all terrifying: 

“We are the true friends of Everychild!”

Everychild brought his hands together in perplexity.  “Friends?” he said.  “I—­I think I never saw you before.  I may have seen your picture.  Yours, I mean.  Not the—­the lady’s.  And I’m not sure I know your right name.  If you’d tell me, and if—­if the lady would take her mask off——­”

But Father Time interrupted him.  In a solemn voice he said, “Everychild, I have come to bid you leave all that has been closest to you and set forth upon a strange journey.”

At this Everychild was deeply awed.  Perhaps he was a little frightened.  “All that has been closest?” he repeated.  “My mother and father—­it is they who have always been closest.”