A great limpid opal, in whose bosom were reflected the white rocks and tall forests of the hill-summit, every pebble, every leaf, hanging from the shore-line, as perfect in the reflection as in the reality. Oh, this was surely a morning to lose all sight of the border-land between the Land of Everyday and the Land of Faery! This was the Reservoir, made by the hand of God to store water, cool, clear, and wonderful, for man’s use. Betsy’s delight grew in thrills as she settled herself under an overhanging rock, to take in the marvel of it.
“Now, Van, you can turn yourself upside down and inside out. There’s a squirrel! You may chase him, if you want to, and there’s a butterfly, and you may chase him, too. Only don’t go off and leave me.”
What a morning that was! Every minute full of new delights, and all too short. Hunger pressed them at an early hour to take their nooning, and they refreshed themselves with the contents of the basket, and drank tin cups of nectar from the opalescent pool. Van sat up and begged and did every trick he knew in payment for the largess with which Betsy rewarded him. He even risked his life doing “Dead Dog,” for he did it in the face of a piece of doughnut, and with such absolute abandon that he started rolling down the bank, and was only saved from being really a dead dog, or rather, a wet one, by Betsy, who clutched him just as he was going over the edge.
A thin film of gray had drawn itself over the sky until the gold was all gone, and the sun had quite disappeared. The air had grown hot and breathless.
“I think I’ll take a rest,” said Betsy at last. “It’s as still as anything up here.”
She curled herself up in a grassy hollow where the early sun had dried the dew, and Van also curled himself comfortably on her skirt, and was soon in the Happy Hunting Ground of Dreams.
A strange stillness settled over the place; nothing stirred save an uneasy bird in the thicket across the pool; the pool itself became a gray pearl in a setting of silence. Everything in the world seemed asleep, and Betsy caught the general drowsiness, closed her eyes, and passed off into visions of Elfland.
Presently she awoke. She felt a curious sensation, as if some one was watching her. Van gave a low growl. She rose to her knees, looked around, and saw a man looking down at her.
Suddenly her heart stood still, and her breath caught in her throat. She looked again.
“Hullo, Bet!”