As he spoke, Avrillia, looking up, waved a blue rose to them, and
disappeared within the house. In a moment she reappeared, wearing the
sweetest smile Sara had ever seen.

Pirlaps looked greatly pleased and touched. And no wonder; for
Avrillia was coming out to meet him, bringing him his step with her
own hands.





Chapter IV
The Invaders


When Sara dropped the curtains behind her the next morning she paused
in horror, with her hand poised above the dimple-holder. What had
happened to her lovely Garden in the night?

It looked exactly as her own little garden was accustomed to look
three days after a hard freeze. Blighted--that was the word: it was
blighted. The leaves hung limp and brown from the trees; the blue
plush grass, and even the blue bark of the Gugollaph-tree, had turned
a most sickly green. The water was frozen in the pool; and, imprisoned
below it, she could see the Echo of the Plynck, perfectly stiff, and
looking as if she were in some sort of awful trance. The Plynck, on
the other hand, drooped on her accustomed branch like the leaves on
the trees, as if she hardly had strength to hold her loosened plumes