He knew some sudden, deep enchantment of the spirit. The Fairyland the
world had lost spread all about him, and--he had the children close.
The imaginative faculty that for years had invented ingenious patents,
woke in force, and ran headlong down far sweeter channels--channels
that fastened mind, heart, and soul together in a single intricate
network of soft belief. He remembered the dusk upon the Crayfield
lawns.
'Of course I know a Star Cave,' he said at length, when Jimbo had
finished his recitation, and Monkey had added the details their father
had told them. 'I know the very one your Daddy spoke about. It's not
far from where we're sitting. It's over there.' He pointed up to the
mountain heights behind them, but Jimbo guided his hand in the right
direction--towards the Boudry slopes where the forests dip upon the
precipices of the Areuse.
'Yes, that's it--exactly,' he said, accepting the correction
instantly; 'only _I_ go to the top of the mountains first so as to
slide down with the river of starlight.'
'We go straight,' they told him in one breath.
'Because you've got more star-stuff in your eyes than I have, and find
the way better,' he explained.
That touched their sense of pity. 'But you can have ours,' they cried,
'we'll share it.'
'No,' he answered softly, 'better keep your own.
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