“Now,” said the Charmed One as the rafters absorbed the last echoes of the fate of Pine-bough, “tell us a story.”
Campanula, with the chamécen lying across her lap, knitted her brows in thought. She was evidently pursuing strange beasts across the fields of Fancy, and undetermined as to which she would mark down and serve up to her guest. Then she solved the matter by suddenly clearing her brow and telling a tale without any beasts in it at all.
“There is a garden,” declared Campanula, “where every one may enter; the Mikado himself goes there, and the riksha man, the Mousmé and the Mousko, Bo Chan, and Kiku San. Even Campanula herself, lowly as she is, may enter there. And there the Mousko pulls the beard of the Emperor unafraid, and the riksha man forgets his riksha and drinks tea at the tea houses, where no money is paid and no money is asked for.”
“What’s this garden you’re telling me of?” demanded Mac, his business instincts and common sense in arms at the latter statement.
“It is the garden of sleep,” answered Campanula cunningly. She had been waiting for the question and now she paused, gently plucking a string of the chamécen, filling the air with a faint throbbing sound as if to summon around her the tale-bearers of the night.
“Here in the garden of sleep,” pursued the dreamy voice, as the vibrations died away, “every tree bears a lighted lantern swinging in the wind and painting the grass beneath with its color—red lanterns painted with storks, and blue lanterns pictured with the blossoms of the cherry; lanterns on which dragons fly pursuing each other, and lanterns disported upon by my lord the Bat.
“A wanderer in the garden has but to pluck a lantern from a tree, and his dreams will at once turn in a happy direction, and by the light of the lantern he will see before him the object of his desire, be it what it may.”
“I’ll remember that,” said Mac grimly, “next time I find myself there.”
“One has no memory there,” said Campanula, “and few people know of the secret of that place, else every one would be happy in their dreams.
“One night entered the garden Taro San, a child no higher than one’s knee. He was the son of a tea-house keeper, and he had plucked a glowworm from a bush, by which feeble light he was lighting himself through the darkness of the garden.