leaving them clear for such as might follow. Now a wonderful form, half birdlike half human, would float across on outspread sailing pinions. Anon an exquisite shadow group of gambolling children would be followed by the loveliest female form, and that again by the grand stride of a Titanic shape, each disappearing in the surrounding press of shadowy foliage. Sometimes a profile of unspeakable beauty or grandeur would appear for a moment and vanish. Sometimes they seemed lovers that passed linked arm in arm, sometimes father and son, sometimes brothers in loving contest, sometimes sisters entwined in gracefullest community of complex form. Sometimes wild horses would tear across, free, or bestrode by noble shadows of ruling men. But some of the things which pleased them most they never knew how to describe.
About the middle of the plain they sat down to rest in the heart of a heap of shadows. After sitting for a while, each, looking up, saw the other in tears: they were each longing after the country whence the shadows fell.
“We must find the country from which the shadows come,” said Mossy.
“We must, dear Mossy,” responded Tangle. “What if your golden key should be the key to it ?”
“Ah! that would be grand,” returned Mossy.—“But we must rest here for a little, and then we shall be able to cross the plain before night.”
So he lay down on the ground, and about him on every side, and over his head, was the constant play of the wonderful shadows. He could look through them, and see the one behind the other, till they mixed in a mass of darkness. Tangle, too, lay admiring, and wondering, and longing after the country whence the shadows came. When they were rested they rose and pursued their journey.
How long they were in crossing this plain I cannot tell; but before night Mossy’s hair was streaked with gray, and Tangle had got wrinkles on her forehead.