Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/350

 it seemed, for her voice took on the tone of one who is much alone and thinks aloud.

"All my life I've been crazy for travel. I used to read my geography book till I wore it out nearly; the exports and the imports, you know? And the pictures of those Arabian men with white turbans, and the South Sea Islanders riding on surf boards—I can see 'em now. There was a castle for Germany, with the moon behind it and the Rhine—do you know 'Bingen on the Rhine'? I love the sound of that. And the Black Forest! Think of it!"

She paused with a platter dripping in her hand, her eyes fixed; and so strong was the compulsion of her vision that to Caroline, vibrant as a wind harp to such suggestion, the splash of the water in the tin was the very tinkle of Undine's mystic stream and Kühleborn, that wicked uncle-brook dashed in cold floods over the belated knight in the dark German wood!

"I dreamed once about an Indian temple," the woman went on, "and you'd really think I'd been there, I saw it so plain. Fat priests and that big idol that sits cross-legged, all made of