Was this garden, which was all
white, in any way connected with the sunbeams and heliotrope? Was it
another of the mysteries God concealed from little girls? Could this
be the home of the genii? This latter idea had no sooner entered my
head than it became a conviction. Of course! There was no doubt
whatever--it was the home of the genii.
The white petals were now a source of peculiar interest to me. I was
fascinated: the minutes sped by and still I was there. It was not
until the sun had disappeared in the far-distant horizon, and the grim
shadows of twilight were creeping out upon me from the neighbouring
trees and bushes, that I awoke from my reverie--and fled!
That night--unable to sleep through the excitement caused by my
discovery of the home of the genii--I lay awake, my whole thoughts
concentrated in one soul-absorbing desire, the passionate desire to
see the fairy of Hennersley--I had never heard of ghosts--and hear its
story. My bedroom was half-way down the corridor leading from the head
of the main staircase to the extremity of the wing.
After I said good-night I did not see my aunts again till the
morning--they never by any chance visited me after I was in bed. Hence
I knew, when I had retired for the night, I should not see a human
face nor hear a human voice for nearly twelve hours. This--when I
thought of the genii with its golden beams of light and scent of
heliotrope--did not trouble me; it was only when my thoughts would not
run in this channel that I felt any fear, and that fear was not of the
darkness itself, but of what the darkness suggested.
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