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The Enchanted Ground! Her eyes sought the far hills, and once more credulity was fortified into conviction, for even as she watched, the white autumn dusk uprose noiselessly, and before it city and hills alike shrank and were gone. It was as convincing a piece of magic as could be wanted.

Laura only wished Aunt Adela could have been there to see it—Aunt Adela, who did not believe in witches—Aunt Adela, always sniffing at Grimm’s Fairy Tales! Besides, even Aunt Adela would be—only for a moment—some sort of a companion, flesh and blood at least, at a small girl’s elbow, as she stands lonesomely on a strange hill-top, buttoning the reefer that had seemed so hot and thick down in the valley, pulling down cuffs of sleeves through which the wind is tunnelling, making shivering preparation for the plunge down—down—down—into Enchanted Ground.

Impossible to turn back now—wasn’t it?... What a notion?... Mother would be waiting.... Mother would know by now that she was coming.... One of the Shining Ones would be sure to have told her.... How excited Mother would be growing.... The Enchanted Ground stretched from sky to sky.... It was beginning to rain, and the wind cut through one’s reefer as if it were gauze.... But there was Mother.... She could get through somehow.... Only she must hurry, for it must be nearly tea-time.... She simply had to get to heaven by tea-time....