"We are the true friends of Everychild!"

Everychild brought his hands together in perplexity. "Friends?" he
said. "I--I think I never saw you before. I may have seen your
picture. Yours, I mean. Not the--the lady's. And I'm not sure I know
your right name. If you'd tell me, and if--if the lady would take her
mask off----"

But Father Time interrupted him. In a solemn voice he said,
"Everychild, I have come to bid you leave all that has been closest to
you and set forth upon a strange journey."

At this Everychild was deeply awed. Perhaps he was a little
frightened. "All that has been closest?" he repeated. "My mother and
father--it is they who have always been closest."

"Everychild must bid farewell to father and mother," declared Father
Time.

And now Everychild was indeed dismayed. "Bid farewell to them?" he
echoed. "Oh, please . . . and shall I never see them again?" He
wished very much to approach Father Time and plead with him; but Father
Time held up an arresting hand and spoke again, almost as if he were a
minister in church.

"It is not given to Everychild to know what the future holds," he said.
And then he again made a polite gesture toward the Masked Lady. "Only
she can tell what the end of the journey shall be," he said.

It was now that Everychild looked earnestly at the Masked Lady. If she