It seemed to her that she must weep or faint. Then in a moment she had

rule over herself and she was speaking and thinking clearly. "All this

has been kept from me," she said. "It is like a dream. I have

dreamt--have dreamt such things. But waking--No. Tell me! Tell me! What

are you? What is this Food of the Gods? Tell me slowly--and clearly. Why

have they kept it from me, that I am not alone?"

II.

Tell me," she said, and young Redwood, tremulous and excited, set

himself to tell her--it was poor and broken telling for a time--of the

Food of the Gods and the giant children who were scattered over the

world.

You must figure them both, flushed and startled in their bearing;

getting at one another's meaning through endless half-heard, half-spoken

phrases, repeating, making perplexing breaks and new departures--a

wonderful talk, in which she awakened from the ignorance of all her

life. And very slowly it became clear to her that she was no exception

to the order of mankind, but one of a scattered brotherhood, who had all

eaten the Food and grown for ever out of the little limits of the folk

beneath their feet. Young Redwood spoke of his father, of Cossar, of the

Brothers scattered throughout the country, of the great dawn of wider

meaning that had come at last into the history of the world. "We are in

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The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth