“Open!” cried Jean’s voice dramatically, and with a hand placed on each elbow twisted her round to face the west.
Vanna gave a cry of delight, and stood transfixed with admiration. The commonplace white house with its tennis-lawn and beds of geraniums had disappeared; she stood on a path looking across a narrow glen illuminated by sunshine, which streamed down through the delicate foliage of a grove of aspens. The dappled light danced to and fro over carpets of softest moss, through which peeped patches of violets and harebells. The trunks of the aspens shone silvery white; here and there on the crest of the hills stood a grave Scotch fir, grey-blue against the green. From below came the melodious splash of water; the faint hum and drone of insect life rose from the ground; from overhead floated down the sweet, shrill chorus of birds. Vanna gazed, her face illumined with admiration, and her companions in their turn gazed at her face. It also was good to look at at that moment, and eloquent as only a usually quiet face can be.
“Oh! how wonderful! It’s a dell—a glade—a fairy glade! The unexpectedness of it! Only a few yards from those beds of geraniums! One feels as if anything like a house or bedding-out plants must be at the other end of the world... And down there the little stream...” She lifted her head with a sudden glance of inquiry. “The stream grows wider surely—there are stepping-stones—at the end there’s a lake. I am sure there is a lake—!”
Before Piers had time to reply, Jean had interrupted with a quick exclamation:
“Vanna! How did you know? How did you guess? You have never been here before?”
“Perhaps Miss Strangeways thinks that she has. Have you visited our glen in another incarnation, Miss Strangeways, that you remember its details so distinctly?”
Vanna shook her head.
“No; I have never known that feeling. One hears of it, but it doesn’t come to me. It’s more like—expectation. I seemed for the moment to see ahead. It must really be a fairy glen, for there’s enchantment in the air. Something—something is going to happen here. I feel it! Something good! We are going to be happy!”
Piers looked at her curiously, but Jean remained charmingly matter-of-fact.
“Of course we are, and we are going to begin at once. Let’s sit down and talk. It’s cool tinder these trees, and I’m sleepy after lunch. So you don’t remember being here before, Vanna? How stupid of you! You must have a very short memory. We’ve played here together scores of times, when there was no white house, and no smooth lawn, and the grandparents of these old trees were gay young saplings. I was a wood-nymph, and danced about with the other nymphs all day long, and flirted with the elves—elves are masculine, I’m sure! and feasted on nuts. (That habit lasts. I adore them still.) When winter came, I curled up into a tight little ball in the hollow of an oak, and slept till spring came back. Where is that old oak, I wonder? I long to meet it again. And all the long summer days we ate wild strawberries, and drank out of the stream, and played hide-and-seek among the trees. And one day, Piers, you came along—do you remember? I peered out from behind the leaves, and saw you coming.”