Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/194

184 "Oh, there it is, Mr. Will. Mr. Will, there is the stone!" and she pointed to a crevice in the tree-roots, higher up than I had looked.

There it was; and a most beautiful stone indeed; Neither Jim nor I had ever seen one like it. It was a crystal nearly two inches long, of a brilliant green color, shading through paler and paler tints to a clear white, and then from white to a deep rose red. For a second we almost forgot Ally in our wonder at the gem. There was nothing like it in the cabinet of our college; we had never read of any such stone.

"Oh, let me carry it, Mr. Will," pleaded Ally. "I won't drop it, and it will help me bear my foot better;" and the sensitive child fixed her eyes with passionate delight on the crystal.

Presently she said, feebly, "Take the stone, Mr. Will. I can't hold it. It pricks."

As I took it from her, a sharp shock of pain ran up my arm. What was this weird bit of crystallized red and green on which we had stumbled? Had we, unawares, linked ourselves to unseen dangers, hidden spells? I was ashamed of the vague sense of terror with which I walked on through the twilight recalling the whole scene: the little flying maiden, with her fantastic red wreaths and golden curls, the strange stone, the mystic bond between her and it, the sharp and inexplicable pain which had shot through my frame on taking it from her hand.