can imagine, than to swell the sum of conscious happiness? And where shall we dare to draw the line, and say "He has made all these and no more"?'

`Yes, yes!' she assented, watching me with sparkling eyes. `But these are only reasons for not denying. You have more reasons than this, have you not?'

`Well, yes,' I said, feeling I might safely tell all now. `And I could not find a fitter time or place to say it. I have seen them -- and in this very wood!'

Lady Muriel asked no more questions. Silently she paced at my side, with head bowed down and hands clasped tightly together. Only, as my tale went on, she drew a little short quick breath now and then, like a child panting with delight. And I told her what I had never yet breathed to any other listener, of my double life, and, more than that (for mine might have been but a noonday-dream), of the double life of those two dear children.

And when I told her of Bruno's wild gambols, she laughed merrily; and when I spoke of Sylvie's sweetness and her utter unselfishness and trustful love, she drew a deep breath, like one who hears at last some precious tidings for which the heart has ached for a long while; and the happy tears chased one another down her cheeks.

`I have often longed to meet an angel,' she whispered, so low that I could hardly catch the words. `I'm so glad I've seen Sylvie! My heart went out to the child the first moment that I saw her -- Listen!' she broke off suddenly. `That's Sylvie singing! I'm sure of it! Don't you know her voice?'

`I have heard Bruno sing, more than once,' I said: `but I never heard Sylvie.'

`I have only heard her once,' said Lady Muriel. `It was that day when you brought us those mysterious flowers. The children had run out into the garden; and I saw Eric coming in that way, and went to the window to meet him: and Sylvie was singing, under the trees, a song I had never heard before. The words were something like "I think it is Love, I feel it is Love". Her voice sounded far away, like a dream, but it was beautiful beyond all words -- as sweet as an infant's first smile, or the first gleam of the white cliffs when one is coming home after weary years -- a voice that seemed to fill one's whole being with peace and heavenly thoughts -- Listen!' she cried, breaking off again in her excitement. `That is her voice, and that's the very song!'

I could distinguish no words, but there was a dreamy sense of music in the air that seemed to grow ever louder and louder, as if coming nearer to us. We stood quite silent, and in another minute the two children appeared, coming straight towards us through an arched opening among the trees. Each had an arm round the other, and the setting sun shed a golden halo round their heads, like what one sees in pictures of saints. They were looking in our direction, but evidently did not see us, and I soon made out that Lady Muriel had for once passed into a condition familiar to me, that we were both of us `eerie', and that, though we could see the children so plainly, we were quite invisible to them.

The song ceased just as they came into sight: but, to my delight, Bruno instantly said `Let's sing it all again, Sylvie! It did sound so pretty!' And Sylvie replied `Very well. It's you to begin, you know.'

So Bruno began, in the sweet childish treble I knew so well:

`Say, what is the spell, when her fledgelings are cheeping,
   That lures the bird home to her nest?
Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping,
   To cuddle and croon it to rest?
What's the magic that charms the glad babe in her arms,
   Till it cooes with the voice of the dove?'

And now ensued quite the strangest of all the strange experiences that marked the wonderful year whose history I am writing -- the experience of first hearing Sylvie's voice in song. Her part was a very short