And with this answer Eva was forced to be content. But every day they would stand side by side, and every day Aster grew taller and taller; and every day the moon grew broader and brighter.
At last she rose, a round, perfect orb, to her station in the sky; and as Eva, awakened by the loud music which told of her coming, sat up to see and wonder at the bright light she cast, Aster came quietly behind her, and, laying his hands on her shoulders, said:
“Look at me, Eva. The day has come, and I am as tall as you are.”
Eva sprang to her feet. As she did so, Aster put his arm around her, and she saw that there was now no difference in their height,—they were exactly the same size. And, strange to say, his clothes had grown with him, and their rich, soft velvet fitted him now as perfectly as it had done when Eva first took him, small and helpless, from the crest of the golden fountain.
“I can tell you now who I am,” the beautiful boy said, “for to-day THEY cannot silence me; this one day when I can be my own self again. You ought to know, Eva, without my telling you, and you would know, if you were like me; but you are not as I am.”
“Why not?” Eva asked, in surprise.
“Because you are only a little earth-maiden.”
Eva laughed, “What is that?” She had wholly, as we know, forgotten the past.
“I cannot tell you,” Aster said, slowly. “I only know what THEY have told me about you.”
“And that?”