Part 8 (1/2)

The fellow had certainly furnished her with a strange experience Buffoon though he was, still she had to adh she could not agree with his views of hopping, she was aht her in their brief conversation If he had been lad to ask his It occurred to her that often people who are least equipped to profit by experiences are the very ones who have thes Did he, then, understand their language? If he caht of trying to go near a hu's house

”Made

”Goodness gracious! Where do you keep cos”

”But do tell, do you hop out into the world just so, without knohere you mean to land?”

”Of course Why not? Can _you_ read the future? No one can Only the tree-toad, but he never tells”

”The things you know! Wonderful, sie of hus?”

”That's a difficult question to answer, mademoiselle, because it hasn't been proved as yet whether hue

Sometimes they utter sounds by which they see with each other--but such awful sounds! So un else in nature that I know of

However, there's one thing you must allow them: they do seem to try to make their voices pleasanter Once I sao boys take a blade of grass between their thumbs and blow on it The result was a whistle which h far inferior in quality of tone, far inferior

However, hu else you'd like to ask? I know a thing or two”

He grinned his alrin

But the next time he hopped off, Maya waited for hirass and the flowers; he was nowhere to be seen

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

PUCK

Maya, droith the noonday heat, flew leisurely past the glare on the bushes in the garden, into the cool, broad-leaved shelter of a great chestnut-tree

On the trodden sward in the shade under the tree stood chairs and tables, evidently for an out-door leae, with thin blue colu up froht Maya, she was bound to see a hu

Had she not reached the very heart of his realm? The tree must be his property, and the curious wooden contrivances in the shade below hted on the leaf beside her It ran up and down the green veining in little jerks You couldn't see its legsabout excitedly Then it flew froer of the broad leaf to another, but so quickly and unexpectedly that you ht it hadn't flown but hopped Evidently it was looking for the most comfortable place on the leaf Every now and then, in the suddennest way, it would swing itself up in the air a short space and buzz vehe dreadfully untoward had occurred, or as though it were animated by some tremendous purpose Then it would drop back to the leaf, as if nothing had happened, and resu up and down

Lastly, it would sit quite still, like a rigid ie

Maya watched its antics in the sunshi+ne, then approached it and said politely: