might have been anywhere in the later twenties, but Joy learned
afterwards that she was thirty-two. To Joy's eyes she was the fairy
lady of the ballad come true; for she had evidently flung herself on
her horse just as she was, in a green evening gown with a light
cloak over it. Even in her anxiety for the child she had about her
an atmosphere of bright serenity that made Joy in love with her.

"I was just going to ask you to go after him," Joy replied as she
looked. "He went past here a few minutes ago. I'm sure he is too
little to be riding alone."

"He is indeed," said the golden lady, smiling. "Little villain! But
it seems he doesn't think so! Which way did he go, please?"

"Straight along this path," Joy answered, pointing.

The lady sprang to her horse again.

"Thank you," she called back, then more and more faintly, "I haven't
much time--now, to be--grateful as I should be. We'll--come--back--"

The last words were hardly distinguishable from the echo of the
flying hoofs. The ballad-lady was gone.

The whole thing seemed to Joy like something out of a pageant. She
wondered if the lovely lady in green was the little boy's mother, or
his sister or aunt.

"It was a little like the Green Gnome poem, except that she was
hunting for him, and that the little boy was pretty," she thought.