‘Nixie,’ he exclaimed, ‘I’ve seen the wind!’
She rolled over lazily on her side and fixed her great blue eyes on his own, between two strands of her hair. From the expression of her brown face it was possible to surmise that she knew nothing—and everything.
‘Have you?’ she said very quietly. ‘I thought you might.’
‘Yes, but did I dream it, or imagine it, or just think it and make it up?’ He still felt a little bewildered; the memory of that strangely beautiful picture-gallery still haunted him. Yonder, before the porch, the steaming horses and the smart coachman on the box, and his sister coming across the lawn from the carriage all belonged to another world, while he himself and Nixie and the other children still stayed with him, floating in a golden atmosphere where Wind was singing and alive.
‘That doesn’t matter a bit,’ she replied, peering at him gravely before she pulled her hair over both eyes. ‘The point is that it’s really true! Now,’ she added, her face completely hidden by the yellow web, ‘all you have to do is to write it for our next Meeting—write the record of your Aventure——’
‘And read it out?’ he said, beginning to understand.
The yellow head nodded. He felt utterly and delightfully bewitched.
‘All right,’ he said; ‘I will.’
‘And make it a very-wonderfulindeed Aventure,’ she added, springing to her feet. ‘Hush! Here’s mother!’
Paul rose dizzily to greet his sister, while the children ran off with their animals to other things.