gardin where the moon's to the full, an' it's warm enough for anny man or
woman that's got a warm heart, an' I'll tell you the story of Filion and
Fiona. You'll not be forgettin' the names of them now, will ye? And
while I'm tellin' you, all the time you'll be thinkin' of St. Droid, for
it's his day. It was nothin' till him, St. Droid, that he lived in a
cave, you understan'? Wasn't his face like the sun comin' up over the
lake at Ballinhoe in the month of June! Well, it doesn't matter if
you've niver seen Ballinhoe--you understan' what I mean. Well, then come
out intil the gardin, darlins. Shure, I'm achin' to tell you the story--
as fine a love-story as iver was told to man and woman."

So it was that Louise with eyes alight-for Patsy had a voice that could
stir imagination in the dullest--so it was that Louise and the others
went out into the moonlit garden, the prairie around them like an endless
waste of sea. There they placed themselves in a half circle around
Patsy, who sat upon a little bench, with his back to the big spreading
elm-tree, which by some special gift had grown alone over the myriad
years, defying storm and winter's frost, until it seemed to have an
honoured permanence, as stable as the prairie earth itself.

As they seated themselves, there was renewed in Louise the feeling she
had at supper-time, when she had imagined--or had her senses accurately
divined? that Orlando was near, so sure had been the sensation that she
had expected Orlando to enter the room where they sat. Now it was on her
again, and somehow she felt him there with her. He was Filion and she
was Fiona.

Since the day she had first seen Orlando, she had awakened to life's
realities. There had grown in her an alertness and a delicate sense of
things, which, though natural to one born with a soul that cared little