dreaming!”

Because she was no longer dressed in shining garments, they did not know her for the princess she really was. Indeed, she was no way different from those around her but that at heart she was still the daughter of the king. They could not see her heart—this they could not know. And seeing that they did not understand, she said no more of the thoughts that came to her. They called it dreaming; but Eline thought that if this were so, a dream were better than a waking life—unless—

Could these be thoughts that came to her of the world beyond the water, the reflection of the real life? She knew not.

“We must teach this little dreamer what is life!” they said. “She will not know what life is if we leave her to her dreams.”

They made her work and made her play: work that never seemed to do anyone any good, and play that seemed like work. She nearly forgot that in what they called her dreams she had ever known of another life.

Sometimes she sang to herself, strange songs that they said sounded sad and sorrowful, yet of a sweetness all their own.

“Where does she hear them?” people asked.

But Eline never told. For the truth was that they came to her in moments when her thoughts were far away, dreaming.

“She sings like a bird in a cage that knows of a brighter world outside,” said one. But he was a poet, so they only smiled as if they themselves would have made the same remark if it had not been so fanciful.

And though men thought her sad and lonely, there was joy to her in the hum of the bees and the song of the birds and the rustling of the leaves. The butterflies and the flowers and the brooks were her friends.

“What a strange child,” people said when they heard her talking to these friends. They did not know of the stories her friends told her, stories which reminded her of a wonderful garden of delight where men did not ever stare and stare in gaping wonder because a little child talked with the fairies that live in all things beautiful, clothed in robes of sunlight and rainbow hues.

They would have taken her away from these friends but for one old man, her grandfather, who said:

“The child will be better for the fresh air. Let her live while she may.”

So it was that she played and talked with the flowers and sang to the brooks and listened to the stories of the forest trees that whispered among themselves. None dared take her away.

One day she had been for a long ramble by a mighty river, and the sun had sunk to the westward on its journey; but she turned not to the place she called her home. Tired and worn out with her play, she lay on a rock and slept.

In her sleep it seemed that a touch upon her forehead awakened in her a vision of things she once had known, but had now almost forgotten. There was the king’s garden and the palace, and the other wonderful buildings, tall and stately—mighty buildings which seemed to speak of mighty builders, noble thoughts and great men’s deeds. Some were even more stately, some more humble, than the palace. But in all there was a sense of grander, nobler life than the life those knew who were with her now, and who, laughing, called her a dreamer.

And she heard a voice repeating, “I will return! I will! I will!”

Again she smiled as she recognized the voice. A feeling of intense happiness and

content came to her and she—awoke. More than ever it seemed as if that other were the real life, and this a heavy dream.

V

The twilight glow still lingered in the west and the evening breeze called her to thoughts of home.

But she had learned wisdom, and when they asked her where she had been, Eline said she had fallen asleep in the sunshine on a rock by the great river. Which was true.

Of her dream she said nothing to any except to the old man who alone seemed to understand her a little. He did not laugh, but looked with thoughtful eyes intent, into the distance, away to the starlit sky, and it seemed to her that he also was trying to remember a forgotten dream of life. And seeing this she put her hand in his trustingly, and they two knew well each other’s thoughts though never a word was spoken.

It seemed to the old man that the child was leading him along a familiar road to a home forgotten—after many weary days of wandering.

“There are some things the heart can say that words can never tell,” he said to himself when she was gone. “I think we understand one another.”

As time passed by Eline came to know more and more of that other life and she longed to tell these things to the people who struggled and surged in hot strife to win the things of the world they knew, never thinking that there was a happier, purer, brighter world. Some thought they knew of such a one; but all except a few made it seem like the one in which they lived—only they made it a little more bright by day, a little more dark by night, and with a little more success in the strife for the things that change and pass away. These she would tell of the nobler life she knew, but they listened not at all.

In due time Eline was sent to school to learn. But her teachers found little that she did not quickly understand. For one thing she remembered now plainly, how in the garden of delight everything that was done was well done—were it the telling of a story or the singing of a song or the watering of the flowers that grew in that fair land. All was done with a wonderful thoroughness, and Eline now felt that she must do all things in that way or leave them quite alone. But often they would teach Eline things about which she seemed to care little and to understand as one in a dream. Then they would call her attention to the work only to find that she was learning to understand a great deal more than they themselves could tell. It was so with numbers. When they asked her what the numbers were by name, she not only named them all but told them why they were so named and what each meant. And so with music. With every chord she seemed to see harmonies of color, like beautiful pictures too glorious to paint. And when she said that life itself to her was music, Eline’s teachers did not understand.

One said: “She has learned these things before in another life.”

Another declared: “She sees the heart of things where we see only the outer covering. She sees the soul, we the body.”

Perhaps they both were right.

But many gave other reasons for these things and all of them were gravely discussed. But curiously enough, the two who gave the reasons I have told, were laughed at and told that such things could not be. So they said little about their thoughts because, like all those who are sure that they know the truth, they could afford to wait until their words were proved to be right.

VI

At first Eline longed to tell the world of better things. She would gladly have told