Eliza, “just like a picture-postcard, ain’t it?—the tuppenny kind.”

“I ought to be getting home,” said Mabel.

“I can’t go home like this. I’d stay and be a savage and live in that white hut if it had any walls and doors,” said Eliza.

“She means the Temple of Dionysus,”‡ said Mabel, pointing to it.

The sun set suddenly behind the line of black fir-trees on the top of the slope, and the white temple, that had been pink, turned grey.

“It would be a very nice place to live in even as it is,” said Kathleen.

“Draughty,” said Eliza, “and law, what a lot of steps to clean! What they make houses for without no walls to ’em? Who’d live in—” She broke off, stared, and added: ”What’s that?”

“What?”

“That white thing coming down the steps. Why, it’s a young man in statooary.”

“The statues do come alive here, after sunset,” said Gerald in very matter-of-fact tones.

“I see they do.” Eliza did not seem at all surprised or alarmed. “There’s another of ’em. Look at them little wings to his feet like pi geons.”

“I expect that’s Mercury,”dt said Gerald.

“It’s ‘Hermes’du under the statue that’s got wings on its feet,” said Mabel, “but—”

“I don’t see any statues,” said Jimmy. “What are you punching me for?”

“Don’t you see?” Gerald whispered; but he need not have been so troubled, for all Eliza’s attention was with her wandering eyes that followed hither and thither the quick movements of unseen statues. “Don’t you see? The statues come alive when the sun goes down—and you can’t see them unless you’re invisible—and I—if you do see them you’re not frightened—unless you touch them.”

“Let’s get her to touch one and see,” said Jimmy.

“ ’E’s lep’ into the water,” said Eliza in a rapt voice. “My, can’t he swim neither! And the one with the pigeons’ wings is flying all over the lake having larks with ’im. I do call that pretty. It’s like cupids as you see on wedding-cakes. And here’s another of ‘em, a little chap with long ears and a baby deer galloping alongside! An’ look at the lady with the baby, throwing it up and catching it like as if it was a ball. I wonder she ain’t afraid. But it’s pretty to see ’em.”

The broad park lay stretched before the children in growing greyness and a stillness that deepened. Amid the thickening shadows they could see the statues gleam white and motionless. But Eliza saw other things. She watched in silence presently, and they watched silently, and the evening fell like a veil that grew heavier and blacker. And it was night. And the moon came up above the trees.

“ ’E’s lep’ into the water”

“Oh,” cried Eliza suddenly, “here’s the dear little boy with the deer—he’s coming right for me, bless his heart!”

Next moment she was screaming, and her screams grew fainter and there was the sound of swift boots on gravel.

“Come on!” cried Gerald; “she touched it, and then she was frightened. Just like I was. Run! she’ll send everyone in the town mad if she gets there like that. Just a voice and boots! Run! Run!”

They ran. But Eliza had the start of them. Also when she ran on the grass they could not hear her footsteps and had to wait for the sound of leather on far-away gravel. Also she was driven by fear, and fear drives fast.

She went, it seemed, the nearest way, invisibly through the waxing moonlight, seeing she only knew what amid the glades and groves.

“I’ll stop here; see you tomorrow,” gasped Mabel, as the loud pursuers followed Eliza’s clatter across the terrace. “She’s gone through the stable yard.”

“The back way,” Gerald panted as they turned the corner of their own street, and he and Jimmy swung in past the water-butt.

An unseen but agitated presence seemed to be fumbling with the locked back-door. The church clock struck the half-hour.

“Half-past nine,” Gerald had just breath to say. “Pull at the ring. Perhaps it’ll come off now.”

He spoke to the bare doorstep. But it was Eliza, dishevelled, breathless, her hair coming down, her collar crooked, her dress twisted and disordered, who suddenly held out a hand—a hand that they could see; and in the hand, plainly visible in the moonlight, the dark circle of the magic ring.

“ ’Alf a mo!”dv said Eliza’s gentleman friend next morning. He was waiting for her when she opened the door with pail and hearthstone in her hand. “Sorry you couldn’t come out yesterday.”

“So’m I.” Eliza swept the wet flannel along the