UNDER.THE WATER SKY. 49

The fairy had vanished.

“Are you Froggy the Prince >” Elsie asked
timidly. This question made the boy ill at ease.
‘He trembled and grew pale. So Elsie hastily
added: “Oh let's do something!”

“Allright, let’s play hide and seek,” the boy
answered inarelieved tone. ‘“ Father Time has
joined Winter and Spring in See and
there he goes now.’

Elsie. looked out of the window at a tall,
thin, old man who was flying away.

“ Time has wings,” remarked the boy.

“ The old man was some distance off, but
Elsie could see that he carried a long scythe
under one arm, while under the other he had a
great bundle of long things that looked like
reeds or sticks. Elsie’s companion said these
were the years that had gone by. They grew in
Father Time’s garden, in the middle of a bed
of thyme, but only one at atime. And it took
fifty-two weeks for the year to ripen. Then
Father Time cut it down, though without de-
stroying the root. There was always a sprout
of a new year at the season of the cutting. It
grew up when the old year was taken away.

The little boy said the years would continue
so long as their root lasted. Father Time kept
his barn off in another world. He only visited it
when his ceztury plant flowered, telling him he