as if I were in church, although there isn't a word of religion in them.
The things he writes are so fine and true and noble; he must be that way
himself. Do you remember that part about the bird in _The Desert Garden,
_ the bird with the broken wing, that would never fly again, singing to
the lame man who would never walk? And the flower that was so determined
to blossom that it grew in the desert and bloomed there?"

"Yes," answered Mary, "it was very beautiful."

"It's the most beautiful thing that was ever written!" declared Agony
enthusiastically. "It would be the greatest joy of my life to see the
man who wrote those books."

"Maybe you will, some day," said Mary, rising from her mossy seat and
preparing to take the path again.

It was not long after that that they came to the edge of the woods, and
saw before them the scattered houses of the little village of Atlantis.
Mary's old nurse was overjoyed to see her, and pressed the two girls to
stay and eat big soft ginger cookies on the shady back porch, and quench
their thirst with glasses of cool milk, while she inquired minutely
after the health of Mary's "ma" and "pa."

"Mrs. Simmons is the best old nurse that ever was," said Mary to Agony,
as they took their way back to the woods an hour later. "I'm so glad to
have had this opportunity of paying her a visit. I haven't seen her for
nearly ten years. Wasn't she funny, though, when I told her that father
might have to go to Japan in the interests of his firm? She thought
there was nobody in Japan but heathens and missionaries."