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wavelets, amid which the stars were netted in the tangled
reflections of the brooding trees upon the bank. He waded until he
swam, and so he crossed the pond and came out upon the other side,
trailing, as it seemed to him, not duckweed, but very silver in
long, clinging, dripping masses. And up he went through the
transfigured tangles of the willow-herb and the uncut seeding grass
of the farther bank. And so he came glad and breathless into the
highroad. "I am glad," he said, "beyond measure, that I had
clothes that fitted this occasion."
The highroad ran straight as an arrow flies, straight into the
deep blue pit of sky beneath the moon, a white and shining road
between the singing nightingales, and along it he went, running now
and leaping, and now walking and rejoicing, in the clothes his
mother had made for him with tireless, loving hands. The road was
deep in dust, but that for him was only soft whiteness, and as he
went a great dim moth came fluttering round his wet and shimmering
and hastening figure. At first he did not heed the moth, and then
he waved his hands at it and made a sort of dance with it as it
circled round his head. "Soft moth!" he cried, "dear moth! And
wonderful night, wonderful night of the world! Do you think my
clothes are beautiful, dear moth? As beautiful as your scales and
all this silver vesture of the earth and sky?"
And the moth circled closer and closer until at last its
velvet wings just brushed his lips . . . . .
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