“The—the hour of enchantment?” Florence murmured after her. Not understanding, but being too full of dreams to care, she said no more.
“Yes, my good friend, Florence Huyler, the enchanted hour.”
Once more the little French girl lapsed into silence.
Florence moved her lips as if about to speak. But she remained silent. Why break a magic spell with mere talk?
And to her this was indeed a magic moment. For hours, earlier in the day, she had listened to the roar of the greatest carnival the world has ever known. About her had swarmed a thousand children. Brown heads, golden heads, laughing eyes, weeping eyes, dancing feet, all that goes to make up a host of youngsters on a holiday. And every day was a holiday on the grounds of this great show.
Nor did Florence miss a day of it. Indeed she could not, for she was a part of it.
On her ear drums had beat the noisy blare of the merry-go-round and the shrill whistle of the miniature train, the hilarious shouts of the joy-makers.
“And now,” she breathed, “it is night. They are home, tucked in bed, those blessed children. I have only to rest here by the fire with Jeanne.” She threw out her splendid arms in an air of abandon, then curled herself up on the dry sand before the fire.
“Only just look!” Jeanne began all over again a moment later. “See what I found to-day in the chest. That last one we bought; the oh, so mysterious chest with a dragon on its cover.”
In her hand she held an object that cast back the light of the dying fire.