How strange it seemed! Something was going to happen, yet all was so still, and there was nothing to disturb the scene.

Suddenly a bluebird flew across. It settled on a bush starry with wild white roses. It put its head on one side and looked at Kitty with the brightest, friendliest eyes. It was quite blue, except for a tuft of golden feathers on its head, and a line of golden feathers round its neck like a fairy necklace. Kitty had never seen anything so wonderful as this bluebird. She stopped to look at it, and the bird looked back at her with its winning eyes. Kitty advanced on tiptoe, and it fluttered a little further into the wood. As it flew off it uttered a note.

“Listen!” said the naughty sprite, lifting its paw and giving Kitty a pat.

238What a note that was! “Glug! glug! glug!” deep as the whistle of a bullfinch, then “Tri—ll—ill—ill!” it went like a lark caroling up in the sky; then suddenly the song changed, and now it was like a nightingale singing in the moonlight. Kitty’s heart swelled as she listened to the song of the beautiful creature, and as it sang it skimmed through the wood, now floating like a sea-gull on blue wings, now balancing itself on the branch of one of the forest trees.

“Come on! Do not put off any longer. It sings to keep you from following the star,” whispered the guardian child.

“Ah! let me listen a moment!” pleaded Kitty.

“Listen! listen!” said the naughty sprite, and down it gamboled from Kitty’s shoulder, seeming to call and to entice the bird, which flew out of the wood and perched on a bough singing; the tuft of golden feathers on its head stood up like a crown, its golden necklace rose like a ruff round its throat.

The sprite laughed, tossed back its head, 239frisked about, keeping time to the bluebird’s song. Kitty thought it was the prettiest sight.

“Watch the star! The bird is a temptation—it is idle pleasure. See, it plays with your naughty sprite. It sings to lead you astray,” whispered the guardian child, and its pink wings fluttered in a tremor of anxiety.

Still Kitty lingered.

“Come on, for Johnnie’s sake—to win a Christmas blessing for Johnnie!” urged the guardian child.

Kitty turned quickly in the direction to which the guardian child pointed. The star was gliding no longer over the pleasant wood; its course lay over a path that was very steep, bordered by no flowers, shaded by no overhanging trees. She ran some steps, and her guardian child pressed its rosy wings against her ears to muffle the song of the bird.

But louder and louder it sang, and that piercing melody seemed to coil itself like a string round Kitty’s heart, pulling her back. She stopped running. The bird seemed to 240sing of frolics, and Kitty felt as if games of four-corners, blind-man’s-buff, hide-and-go-seek were all hustling and bustling about in her head, and tingling in her feet. She turned to look.

“Don’t!” murmured her guardian child.

But Kitty looked. The naughty sprite and the bluebird were having a merry game. The bird flew as it sang and the sprite gamboled after it; it hid in the bushes and the sprite went frisking and seeking for it; then up the bluebird would fly and wheel round and round, 241singing as if a thousand musical glasses were tinkling in its throat. The sprite had the drollest air; jerking his head on one side and beckoning to Kitty.

“Oh! let me join in the game!” cried Kitty, and back she ran toward the bird and the sprite.

The guardian child flew around her, crying, “Do not play with your naughty sprite!”

As he spoke he spread his wings before Kitty’s eyes. But the music was in Kitty’s heart, in her ears, it seemed to be in her hair, in her feet—it was everywhere.

“I shall play!” she cried impatiently, and she pushed away her guardian child.

She did not hear his sob, she did not notice that she had struck his wing and that some rosy feathers lay strewn on the ground. One little rosy feather had dropped on the bosom of her dress, and was caught there by the folds.

She did look round to see her guardian child, with drooping wing, growing paler and paler—vanishing away.

242Deeper and deeper flew the bird into the wood, and sweeter grew its song. The naughty sprite gamboled after it, Kitty gamboled after the sprite. A star rose in the wood; it was like a blue diamond; it did not glide above the tree-tops, it danced about the ground, as if it were dancing to the song of the bluebird. The naughty sprite scampered up the tree and pelted Kitty with acorns; it now peeped at her from behind the trunks, now swung itself down and jumped into her arms all in a pant and tremble of play. And the bluebird wheeled and circled above Kitty’s head, and still it sang.

Skipping out of the wood came a hundred little creatures. They all had pointed ears, curly tails, and sparkling black eyes. They carried tiny lanterns that were blue and dazzling as the star. They were the merriest, most frolicsome of elves, but the friskiest and most fascinating of all was Kitty’s naughty self-sprite.

Louder sang the bird and louder; its song was now a dancing measure; it echoed through 243the forest as if gayety were the single spirit of the place. The blue star bounded and danced about the ground, here, there, e............