The resemblance between Mavis and Charity was certainly marvelous, and Haskins could not account for the similarity; but after a long and searching look he became certain that the girls were two different flesh and blood human beings, and not one, as he had momentarily supposed. On acquiring this assurance in his innermost being the young man drew a breath of relief, since Charity was more or less engaged to Tod, and he did not wish to poach on Tod's preserves. The question of the resemblance he determined swiftly to leave to a later date for answer, and meanwhile surrendered himself entirely to the incredible romance of the adventure. Surely no more poetic happening had taken place since King Cophetua had gone a-wooing his Beggar Maid.
But by the time his reflections had reached this point the Princess of Fairyland--for that she certainly was--betrayed excitement and uneasiness, waving her hands to intimate that he should hide behind the ruddy leaves of a copper beech, which over topped the wall and leaned against it. "Bellaria will catch you," called up Mavis softly, "and then I'll never see you again. Get behind the beech. I'll return soon."
She sped lightly away, while Haskins, still trying to assure himself that he was not dreaming, shuffled along the wall until he gained the covert of the spreading branches. Here he was safe from any espial, and while Mavis was absent he gently parted the leaves to view her enchanted palace, whither she had called him. A phonograph and Fairyland! it was an odd mixture of poetry and science. A page with a silken-bound parchment; a dragon-chariot to waft a mortal prince to a spellbound queen; these were natural in the circumstances. But to be summoned by a phonograph! Why, it linked the age of motor cars with that of King Arthur.
Haskins saw below him a moderately sized quadrangle, smoothly turfed in the center and bordered with beds of flowers stretching to moldering walls. To the right, and straight in front--somewhat after the shape of the letter "L"--were two ranges of a gray stone mansion clothed--as was the wall--with thickly growing ivy. There were two stories, and the architecture was Tudor, picturesque, and graceful. Along the lower story of the front wing were elaborate oriel windows, filled in with lattice-work and, as Gerald shrewdly suspected, with stained glass. An archway pierced this wing, and apparently led to another part of the grounds. The range of buildings on the right was less elaborate, as the windows above and below were square and modern in their looks. To the left were ruinous stables, and outhouses more or less tumbledown, and, of course, the fourth side of the quadrangle was closed in by the wall upon which the young man was seated. What with the gray wall, the beautifully shaped oriels, the peaked roofs of mellow red tiles, and the mantle of greenery which overspread all, the place looked like a picture from the Christmas Number of The Graphic.
Yet if the house was neglected, the garden and lawn certainly were not. The turf was as smooth as a billiard-table, and the beds of flowers were carefully tended, as he could see from the absence of weeds and the efflorescence of blossoms. These were chiefly those of humble cottage flowers. Tall hollyhocks, golden snapdragon, sweet-william, pansies, marigolds, ragged robin, and musk carnations: all these grew in artistic profusion and confusion, making the quadrangle a world of beauty and color and perfume. In the center of the lawn rose an antique sundial, supported by three battered female figures, and over all this dreamy, old-world haven of rest arched the shadowy sky, blending night and day in vapory blue and rosy flushings. Haskins felt that a new planet had "swam into his ken"--all that he had dreamed of, as too fair for earth, was here transmuted from the ideal into the real. "I must certainly be in Dreamland," thought the young man, "or in Paradise, or in Prospero's Enchanted Island, or in the Vale of Avilion, where it doth neither rain nor snow."
But his poetic musings were cut short by a rustle among the coppery leaves of the beech. He looked down from his wall and saw a vision of loveliness rising from the foliage like Undine from the well. "I went to see what Bellaria was doing," explained Mavis breathlessly, and perched on a sloping bough, so near to the wall that the young man could have embraced her without difficulty. He felt very much inclined to do so, for he was rapidly falling fathoms deep in love. But a feeling of respect for the unprotected girl restrained him, and he listened spellbound to the music of her voice. "Bellaria was cooking the supper, you know," went on the girl prosaically, "so there is no chance of her coming to call me for half-an-hour."
"And what then?" asked Gerald soberly.
"You must go away. Bellaria would be very angry if she knew that my fairy prince had come."
"Am I the fairy prince?" asked Haskins softly.
Mavis raised her brows with a trill of heavenly laughter. "Of course you are, since you came over the wall. I have been watching here for months to see you arrive. You would not have come had you not got my message."