vault, did little to inform her that the fog was about to
lift. The rising wind merely made her the more miserable and
alone. Nor was it until a disk of gold smote suddenly on the
rock before her that she looked up and beheld a twinkle of
blue sky. The fog puffed across the blue, the blue looked
down again,--a bigger eye than before,--a wisp of fog filmed
it again, and again it gleamed out, ever larger and always
more blue. The good wind living far to the south had heard
that in a few days a little girl was to be alone and
comfortless upon a foggy island, and, hearing, had filled his
vast chest with warmth and sunshine, and puffed out his merry
cheeks and blown. The great breath sent the blue waves
thundering upon the coral beaches of Florida, tore across the
forests of palm and set them all waving hilariously, shook the
merry orange-trees till they rattled, whistled through the
dismal swamps of Georgia, swept, calling and shouting to
itself, over the Carolinas, where clouds were hatching in
men's minds, banked up the waters of the Chesapeake so that
there was a great high tide and the ducks were sent scudding
to the decoys of the nearest gunner, went roaring into the
oaks and hickories of New York, warmed the veins of New
England fruit-trees, and finally coming to the giant fog, rent
it apart by handfuls as you pluck feathers from a goose, and
hurled it this way and that, until once more the sky and land
could look each other in the face. Then the great wind
laughed and ceased.
For a long time Margaret looked down the cleared face of the
river, but there was no trace of Aladdin, and in life but one
comfort: the sun was hot and she was getting warm.