"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.
In the poem the Gnome had turned to a "tall and comely man" when the
lady kissed him. She liked the lady; there had been something so gay
and friendly about her, just in those few words, that Joy's heart
felt warmed. Very few people near her own age came close enough to
stately little Joy to be as friendly as the lady had been--or as the
wishing-ring man had been.
"Somewhere," Joy decided happily, "there must be lots of people like
them, if I could only find the place. I'm sure I shall some day.
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