It is the instinct of a little child to picture unreal things--the unconscious protest of immaturity against the commonplaceness of life.

But with the education of to-day and the labyrinth of artificiality which characterizes modern living, the imaginativeness of childhood disappears, except in a few great minds who, retaining it, are hailed by the world as possessors of genius.

Unhampered (or unhelped, as the case may be) by a.s.sociation with the patchwork pattern of society, the miller's niece had retained her gift of imagination, without which the solitude and the monotony of her days would have been unendurable; until, blending it with the budding flower of womanhood, she found mystery in the moaning of the wind. While the sun danced upon the gra.s.s her spirit mingled with the sunlight; and when the moon exercised her suzerainty of the heavens the poetry in her soul thrilled to sweet dreams of lover's wooings (though her unreasoned rapture often ended in unreasoned tears upon the pillow).... She found melancholy in the coloring of an autumn leaf, and laughter in the music of the mill-stream.... There were smugglers' tales in a northeast gale, and fairy stories in a summer's shower.

The doctrine of pleasure so feverishly followed by her sisters to-day was unknown to her--as was its insidious reaction which comes to so many women, with the dulling of the perceptions, the blinding of eyes to the colors of life, the deadening of ears to the music of nature, until they cannot hear the subtle melody of happiness itself, so closely allied to the somber beauty of sorrow.

"Little one"--the aviator's voice was very soft, so that the ticking of the clock sounded clearly above it--"in a few minutes I must go. It is a dark night, and of necessity I must get to the village to-night, and be on my way before dawn."

Her eyes were hidden by her drooping eyelashes. "You will return--yes?"

she asked, without looking up.

He smiled rather wistfully. "'When the red-breasted robins are nesting,'" he quoted slowly, "'I shall come.'"

The clock ticked wearily on.... A few drops of rain fell upon the roof.

"Monsieur"--the crimson in her cheeks deepened--"you must not smile; but it is in my book, here."

She took from the table _The Fairy Prince_, and handed it to him. He gazed at it with a seriousness he might have shown towards a book of Scottish theology.

"You know, monsieur"--she appeared deeply concerned in the design of the geranium table-cover--"I never leave the mill-house unless to attend ma.s.s, and sometimes--perhaps you would think so, too--it is very lonesome; no brother, no sister, just Louis and my uncle."

He nodded, and, with an air of abstraction, his brow wrinkled sympathetically, and his fingers strummed five-finger exercises on the table.

"It must be very dull," he said.

"But no, monsieur"--her eyes looked up in protest--"not dull--just lonesome."

He sustained an imaginary note with his little finger, frowned thoughtfully until his eyebrows almost obscured his eyes, then came down the scale with slow and measured pace.

"Well, little lady who is never dull, and what has all this to do with _The Fairy Prince_?"

"It is because I have no sisters, no friends, that--that I pretend. But you do not understand."

He played some chord with both hands.

"Very young people and very old ones pretend," he said, with dreamy sententiousness; "pretending is what makes them happy. But the Prince----?"

She smiled deprecatingly. "When I read, monsieur, I think that the girl--there is always a girl, is there not?" He nodded gravely. "I do not think it is she," she went on, "but myself; and when the book is finished, and she marries her lover, then I am happy ... and dream...."

"'We are such stuff as dreams are made of,'" he murmured, and trilled with his first and second fingers.

"So, monsieur," she continued, glancing shyly at him, "in that book----"

"There is a girl."

"Yes. And a Fairy Prince who was very handsome."

"Like me?"

"It does not say, monsieur."

"Ah!"

"But I think so," she said earnestly, "for he was the handsomest man in all France."

"It said nothing of England?"

"No, monsieur, only France."

He nodded with great dignity, and motioned her to proceed. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her interlocked fingers.

"To-day I was reading it to Louis," she said, "when, just at the moment that they met--_vous voila!_--you came. Monsieur," she said navely, "are you a fairy prince?"

He considered, with head characteristically on one side.

"N-no," he said, "I cannot claim that, but----"

"Ah, yes?" Her face lit up with delighted antic.i.p.ation.

"I am a prince of the air." He struck an att.i.tude and held it.

"Oh!" Her lips parted in ecstasy and her cheeks, which had been crimson, became scarlet. "You--are really a prince?"

"Of the air, mademoiselle." He folded his arms and tilted his chair back. His face was still grave, but his voice had a sense of distance in it, and his light eyes widened as though they saw the world his words were picturing. "My kingdom is greater than all the kingdoms of the earth, and when I ride, my steed with wings takes me towards the stars. For sport I play with clouds and race the wind; at night the moon gives me light; and when I travel there are no mountains to climb, no lakes to cross. I go faster than the swiftest horse, and ride from villages to cities, out into the country, and over the sea with a steed that never tires."

"But, monsieur," she cried, "this is wonderful!"

He looked frankly into her eyes. "It _is_ wonderful," he said.

For a few minutes neither spoke, and the soft symphony of raindrops played through the quietness of the night.

"Your Majesty," she said timorously, "are you very brave? You understand," she hurried on as a slight blush darkened the tan of his cheeks, "in fairy books the prince always fights a dragon or a wicked giant."

"Don't uncles count?"

She made a pretty _moue_.

"As a matter of fact," he said slowly, "there was a wicked Emperor--a bl.u.s.tering popinjay with a madman's vanity--who decreed that all the world should be his slaves, and sent his armies into France and Belgium to enforce his will. My brothers heard of this, and came from countries and dominions thousands of miles away. Across great continents of water they sailed, and, with their brothers from the little Islands of the North Sea, came to France...."

"Your voice is very sad," she said tenderly. Her nature, that knew every mood of a summer breeze, had caught the inflection of his words, understanding by their tone what the vagueness of his words hid from her mind.

"So many have died," he said, looking away from her. "Almost every day some one rides out into the sunlight to his death, young, brave, and smiling.... Mademoiselle, it is wonderful how they smile."

Tick--tick--tick.

For more than a minute neither spoke, then, with a smile that was strangely boyish, he squared his shoulders and ran his fingers through his rumpled hair.

"Ha!" he laughed; "what fancies get into a scatter-brain like mine when the rain's a-pattering on the roof. If you will allow me, little Pippa, I shall smoke."