"Won't you let me hear your song, or your tune?" said the lady, politely seating herself with an expectant air upon a stump further off.
Nan's cheeks grew redder. She did not like to seem ungracious to this stranger who showed such an unusual interest in her performances and yet her only audience heretofore had been the creatures of the field and the air. "No one has ever heard it but the crows," she said hesitatingly, then impulsively: "You won't laugh?"
"Indeed no, of course not," returned the lady with some real indignation at such a suspicion.
Nan sat still long enough to screw up her courage to the active point, and then drawing from her blouse a bit of paper, she seated herself before her log-piano and began her song. The lady, with cheek in hand, leaned forward and listened intently. Once there was a slight flicker of amusement in her eyes, but for the most part her face was tenderly serious. At the close of the song she said gently: "Thank you, dear. I think that is a very sweet little air for one so young as you to think of. May I see?" She extended her hand for Nan's half-written song. "How will you finish it?" she asked.
"I don't know. I'll have to wait till Aunt Sarah goes out or goes away. I hope I shall not forget it before then. I'll sing it over every day and then maybe I won't forget."
The lady looked at her thoughtfully for a minute. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked suddenly.
"Oh, yes. Why, nobody, not even Mary Lee, has an idea about this." She waved her hand to include her music-room retreat.
[Illustration: SHE SEATED HERSELF BEFORE HER LOG PIANO AND BEGAN HER SONG]
"I am your fairy godmother, and if you will meet me under the sunset tree to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, I will conduct you to a place where you can finish your song undisturbed, for I guarantee Aunt Sarah will not be caught napping within hearing of you and the melodeon."
"Oh, how perfectly delicious," cried Nan, her imagination all afire. "I'd love that. Where is the sunset tree? It is such a lovely name for it."
The lady pointed to a huge oak just across the brook. "It is called that because one can see the sunset so finely from there. Have you never been up to look at the sun go down behind the hills? There is one little notch between the mountains over there and at a certain season of the year the sun drops right down into it."