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But the sprite lay on his face in the desert for a long time, sobbing as if his heart would break. Then he fell asleep and laughed in his dreams. When he awoke it was night and the moon was shining silver. He rubbed his eyes and whispered to himself, “Now I must find out what she wants.” With that he leaped up, and the moonbeams washed him white as he passed through them to the lady’s house.

The next afternoon, when the man came to read her the really good story, she would not listen.

“No,” she said, “I am very angry with you.”

“Why?”

“You know well enough.”

“Upon my honour, I do not.”

“What?” cried the lady. “You profess ignorance, when he distinctly said–

“Pardon,” said the man, “but who said?”

“Your unruly sprite,” she answered, indignant. “He came last night outside my window, which was wide open for the moon, and shot an arrow into my breast–a little baby arrow, but it hurt. And when I cried out for the pain, he climbed up to me and kissed the place, saying that would make it well. And he swore that you made him promise to come. If that is true, I will never speak to you again.”

“Then of course,” said the man, “it is not true. And now what do you want me to do with this unruly sprite?”

“Get rid of him,” said she firmly.

“I will,” replied the man, and he bowed over her hand and went away.

He stayed for a long time–nearly a week–and when he came back he brought several sad verses with him to read. “They are very dull,” said the lady; “what is the matter with you?” He confessed that he did not know, and began to talk learnedly about the Greek and Persian poets, until the lady was consumed with a fever of dulness.

“You are simply impossible!” she cried. “I wonder at myself for having chosen such a friend!”

“I am sorry indeed,” said the man.

“For what?”

“For having disappointed you as a friend, and also for having lost my dear unruly sprite who kept me from being dull.”

“Lost him!” exclaimed the lady. “How?”

“By now,” said the man, “he must be quite dead, for I tied him to a tree in the forest five days a go and left him to starve.”

“You are a brute,” said the lady, “and a very stupid man. Come, take me to the tree. At least we can bury the poor sprite, and then we shall part forever.”

So he took her by the hand and guided her through the woods, and they talked much of the sadness of parting forever.

When they came to the tree, there was the little sprite, with his wrists and ankles bound, lying upon the moss. His eyes were closed, and his body was white as a snowdrop. They knelt down, one on each side of him, and untied the cord. To their surprise his hands felt warm. “I believe he is not quite dead,” said the lady. “Shall we try to bring him to life?” asked the man. And with that they fell to chafing his wrists and his palms. Presently he gave each of them a slight pressure of the fingers.

“Did you feel that?” cried she.

“Indeed I did,” the man answered. “It shook me to the core. Would you like to take him on your lap so that I can chafe his feet?”

The lady nodded and took the soft little body on her knees and held it close to her, while the man kneeled before her rubbing the small, milk-white feet with strong and tender touches. Presently, as they were thus engaged, they heard the sprite faintly whispering, while one of his eyelids flickered:

“I think–if each of you–would kiss me–on opposite cheeks–at the same moment–those kind of movements would revive me.”

The two friends looked at each other, and the man spoke first.

“He talks ungrammatically, and I think he is an incorrigible little savage, but I love him. Shall we try his idea?”

“If you love him,” said the lady, “I am willing to try, provided you shut your eyes.”

So they both shut their eyes and tried.

But just at that moment the unruly sprite slipped down, and put his hands behind their heads, and the two mouths that sought his cheeks met lip to lip in a kiss so warm, so long, so sweet that everything else was forgotten.

Now you can easily see that as the persons who had this strange experience were the ones who told me the tale, their forgetfulness at this point leaves it of necessity half-told. But I know from other sources that the man who was also a writer went on making books, and the lady always told him truly whether they were good, bad, or merely popular. But what the unruly sprite is doing now nobody knows.

FINIS