"And now listen to his song of triumph! I suppose that chasm he
cleared seemed as wide and deep to him as Niagara Gorge would to
us if we leaped over it. Well, the wood people are a happy folk
and very well satisfied with themselves."
Those who have followed a dim, winding, balsamic path to the
unexpected hollow where a wood-spring lies have found the rarest
secret the forest can reveal. Such was our good fortune that day.
At the end of our path we found it, under the pines, a crystal-
clear thing with lips unkissed by so much as a stray sunbeam.
"It is easy to dream that this is one of the haunted springs of
old romance," said Uncle Blair. "'Tis an enchanted spot this, I
am very sure, and we should go softly, speaking low, lest we
disturb the rest of a white, wet naiad, or break some spell that
has cost long years of mystic weaving."
"It's so easy to believe things in the woods," said the Story
Girl, shaping a cup from a bit of golden-brown birch bark and
filling it at the spring.
"Drink a toast in that water, Sara," said Uncle Blair. "There's
not a doubt that it has some potent quality of magic in it and the
wish you wish over it will come true."
The Story Girl lifted her golden-hued flagon to her red lips. Her
hazel eyes laughed at us over the brim.
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