"Oh," she cried, "look! A star has fallen! It's straying about and can't find its way back to its place in the sky."

"That's a firefly," said the flower-sprite, without a smile.

Now, in the midst of her amazement, Maya realized for the first time why the sprite seemed so dear and kind. He never laughed at her ignorance; on the contrary, he helped her when she went wrong.

"They are odd little creatures," the sprite continued. "They carry their own light about with them on warm summer nights and enliven the dark under the shrubbery where the moonlight doesn't shine through. So firefly can keep tryst with firefly even in the dark. Later, when we come to the human beings, you will make the acquaintance of one of them."

"Why?" asked Maya.

"You'll soon see."

By this time they had reached an arbor completely overgrown with jasmine and woodbine. They descended almost to the ground. From close by, within the arbor, came the sound of faint whispering.

The flower-sprite beckoned to a firefly.

"Would you be good enough," he asked, "to give us a little light? We have to push through these dark leaves here; we want to get to the inside of the jasmine-arbor."

"But your glow is much brighter than mine."

"I think so, too," put in Maya, more to hide her excitement than anything else.

"I must wrap myself up in a leaf," explained the sprite, "else the human beings would see me and be frightened. We sprites appear to human beings only in their dreams."

"I see," said the firefly. "I am at your service. I will do what I can.-- Won't the great beast with you hurt me?"

The sprite shook his head no, and the firefly believed him.

The sprite now took a leaf and wrapped himself in it; the gleam of his white garments was completely hidden. Then he picked a little bluebell from the gra.s.s and put it on his shining head like a helmet. The only bit of him left exposed was his face, which was so small that surely no one would notice it. He asked the firefly to perch on his shoulder and with its wing to dim its lamp on the one side so as to keep the dazzle out of his eyes.

"Come now," he said, taking Maya's hand. "We had better climb up right here."

The little bee was thinking of something the sprite had said, and as they clambered up the vine, she asked:

"Do human beings dream when they sleep?"

"Not only then. They dream sometimes even when they are awake.

They sit with their bodies a little limp, their heads bent a little forward, and their eyes searching the distance, as if to see into the very heavens. Their dreams are always lovelier than life. That's why we appear to them in their dreams."

The sprite now laid his tiny finger on his lips, bent aside a small blooming sprig of jasmine, and gently pushed Maya ahead.

"Look down," he said softly, "you'll see what you have been wishing to see."

The little bee looked and saw two human beings sitting on a bench in the shadows cast by the moonlight--a boy and a girl, the girl with her head leaning on the boy's shoulder, and the boy holding his arm around the girl as if to protect her. They sat in complete stillness, looking wide-eyed into the night.

It was as quiet as if they had both gone to sleep. Only from a distance came the chirping of the crickets, and slowly, slowly the moonlight drifted through the leaves.

Maya, transported out of herself, gazed into the girl's face.

Although it looked pale and wistful, it seemed to be transfused by the hidden radiance of a great happiness. Above her large eyes lay golden hair, like the golden hair of the sprite, and upon it rested the heavenly sheen of the midsummer night. From her red lips, slightly parted, came a breath of rapture and melancholy, as if she wanted to offer everything that was hers to the man by her side for his happiness.

And now she turned to him, pulled his head down, and whispered a magical something that brought a smile to his face such as Maya thought no earthly being could wear. In his eyes gleamed a happiness and a vigor as if the whole big world were his to own, and suffering and misfortune were banished forever from the face of the earth.

Maya somehow had no desire to know what he said to the girl in reply. Her heart quivered as though the ecstasy that emanated from the two human beings was also hers.

"Now I have seen the most glorious thing that my eyes will ever behold," she whispered to herself. "I know now that human beings are most beautiful when they are in love."

How long Maya stayed behind the leaves without stirring, lost in looking at the boy and girl, she did not know. When she turned round, the firefly's lamp had been extinguished, the sprite was gone. Through the doorway of the arbor far across the country on the distant horizon showed a narrow streak of red.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XII

ALOIS, LADYBIRD AND POET

The sun was risen high above the tops of the beech-trees when Maya awoke in her woodland retreat. In the first moments, the moonlight, the chirping of the cricket, the midsummer night meadow, the lovely sprite, the boy and the girl in the arbor, all seemed the perishing fancies of a delicious dream. Yet here it was almost midday; and she remembered slipping back into her chamber in the chill of dawn. So it had all been real, she _had_ spent the night with the flower-sprite and _had_ seen the two human beings, with their arms round each other, in the arbor of woodbine and jasmine.

The sun outside was glowing hot on the leaves, a warm wind was stirring, and Maya heard the mixed chorus of thousands of insects. Ah, what these knew, and what _she_ knew! So proud was she of the great thing that had happened to her that she couldn't get out to the others fast enough; she thought they must read it in her very looks.

But in the sunlight everything was the same as ever. Nothing was changed; nothing recalled the blue moonlit night. The insects came, said how-do-you-do, and left; yonder, the meadow was a scene of bustling activity; the insects, birds and b.u.t.terflies hopped, flew and flitted in the hot flickering air around the tall, gay midsummer flowers.

Sadness fell upon Maya. There was no one in the world to share her joys and sorrows. She couldn't make up her mind to fly over and join the others in the meadow. No, she would go to the woods. The woods were serious and solemn. They suited her mood.

How many mysteries and marvels lie hidden in the dim depths of the woods, no one suspects who hurries un.o.bservant along the beaten tracks. You must bend aside the branches of the underbrush, or lean down and peep between the blackberry briars through the tall gra.s.ses and across the thick moss. Under the shaded leaves of the plants, in holes in the ground and tree-trunks, in the decaying bark of stumps, in the curl and twist of the roots that coil on the ground like serpents, there is an active, multiform life by day and by night, full of joys and dangers, struggles and sorrows and pleasures.

Maya divined only a little of this as she flew low between the dark-brown trunks under the leafy roof of green. She followed a narrow trail in the gra.s.s, which made a clear path through thicket and clearing. Now and then the sun seemed to disappear behind clouds, so deep was the shade under the high foliage and in the close shrubbery; but soon she was flying again through a bright shimmer of gold and green above the broad-leaved miniature forests of bracken and blackberry.

After a long stretch the woods opened their columned and over-arched portals; before Maya's eyes lay a wide field of grain in the golden sunshine. b.u.t.terfly-weed flamed on the gra.s.sy borders. She alighted on the branch of a birch-tree at the edge of the field and gazed upon the sea of gold that spread out endlessly in the tranquillity of the placid day. It rippled softly under the shy summer breeze, which blew gently so as not to disturb the peace of the lovely world.

Under the birch-tree a few small brown b.u.t.terflies, using the b.u.t.terfly-weed for corners, were playing puss-in-the-corner, a favorite game with b.u.t.terfly-children. Maya watched them a while.

"It must be lots of fun," she thought, "and the children in the hive might be taught to play it, too. The cells would do for corners.-- But Ca.s.sandra, I suppose, wouldn't permit it. She's so strict."

Ah, now Maya felt sad again. Because she had thought of home.

And she was about to drift off into homesick revery when she heard someone beside her say:

"Good morning. You're a beast, it seems to me."

Maya turned with a start.

"No," she said, "decidedly not."

There sitting on her leaf was a little polished terra-cotta half-sphere with seven black dots on its cupola of a back, a minute black head and bright little eyes. Peeping from under the dotted dome and supporting it as best they could Maya detected thin legs fine as threads. In spite of his queer figure, she somehow took a great liking to the stout little fellow; he had distinct charm.

"May I ask who you are? I myself am Maya of the nation of bees."

"Do you mean to insult me? You have no reason to."