"Oh, excuse me," she murmured. "I guess I was sort of dreaming."

Mr. Saunders, overhearing, glanced up at her.

"The spell of moon and music, fair maid?" he asked. And, though he
smiled, she didn't feel that he was making fun of her.

Again that quaint language! A knight of old might have talked that
way! But Missy, just now, was doubtful as to whether a knight in the
flesh was entirely desirable.

It was with rather confused emotions that, after the visitors had
departed and she had told Aunt Isabel good night, Missy went up to
the little white-painted, cretonne-draped room. Life was
interesting, but sometimes it got very queer.

After she had undressed and snapped off the light, she leaned out of
the window and looked at the night for a long time. Missy loved the
night; the hordes of friendly little stars which nodded and
whispered to one another; the round silver moon, up there at some
enigmatic distance yet able to transfigure the whole world with
fairy-whiteness--turning the dew on the grass into pearls, the
leaves on the trees into trembling silver butterflies, and the dusty
street into a breadth of shimmering silk. At night, too, the very
flowers seemed to give out a sweeter odour; perhaps that was because
you couldn't see them.

Missy leaned farther out the window to sniff in that damp, sweet
scent of unseen flowers, to feel the white moonlight on her hand.
She had often wished that, by some magic, the world might be enabled