"You'll have no fear, I'm thinking, since the moon makes the clearing as bright as day, and I'll not be letting you out of my sight. I have a fancy to stand upon yonder level place and call you as I called you once before. Only, this time, the heart of me will dance to my own music, for I know you'll be coming all the while I play."
He left her and clambered up the hill to the narrow ledge which sloped back, and was surrounded with pines. He kept in the open spaces, so that the moonlight was always upon him, and she did not lose sight of him more than once or twice, and then only for a moment. The hill was not a high one and the ascent was very gradual. Within a few minutes, he had gained his place.
Clear and sweet through the moonlit forest rang out the pipes o' Pan, singing of love and joy. Never before had the Piper's flute given forth such music as this. The melody was as instinctive as the mating-call of a thrush, as crystalline as a mountain stream, and as pure as the snow from whence the stream had come.
Evelina climbed to meet him, her face and heart uplifted. The silvery notes dropped about her like rain as she ascended, strangely glad and strangely at peace. When she reached the level place where he was standing, his face illumined with unspeakable joy. He dropped his flute and opened his arms.
"My Spinner in the Sun," he whispered, "I called you, and you came."
"Yes," she answered, from his close embrace, "you called me, and I have come—for always."
At last, he released her and they stood facing each other. The Piper was stirred to the depths of his soul. "Last night I dreamed," he said, "and 't was the dream that brought me back. It was a little place, with a brook close by, and almost too small to be called a house, but 'twas a home, I'm thinking, because you were there. It was night, and I had come back from making the world a bit easier for some poor woman-soul, and you were standing in the door, waiting.
"The veil was gone, and there was love on your face—ah, I've often dreamed a woman was waiting for me so, but because you hide your beauty from me, 't is not for me to be asking more. God knows I have enough given me, now.
"Since the first, I've known you were very beautiful, and very brave. I knew, too, that you were sad—that you had been through sorrows no man would dare to face. I've dreamed your eyes were like the first violets of Spring, your lips deep scarlet like the Winter berries, and I know the wonder of your hair, for The veil does not hide it all. I've dreamed your face was cold and pure, as if made from marble, yet tender, too, and I well know that it's noble past all words of mine, because it bears brave scars.
"I've told you I would never ask, and I'll keep my word, for I know well 't is not for the likes of me to see it, but only to dream. Don't think I'm asking, for I never will, but, Spinner in the Sun, because you said you would fare with me on the highway and face the cold and storm, it gives me courage to ask for this.