It was a night of white moonlight; a languorous night. It was a night of impenetrable shadows, deep and black; and, where light and shadow met and merged, the treetops were fringed against the sky in tracery as delicate as a cameo. And there was fragrance in the air, exotic, exquisite, the fragrance of growing things, of semi-tropical flowers and trees and shrubs. And very faint and soft there fell upon the ear the gentle lapping of the water on the shore, as though in her mother tenderness nature were breathing a lullaby over her sea-cradled isle.  
On a verandah of great length and spacious width, moon-streaked where the light stole in through the row of ornamental columns that supported the roof and through the interstices of vine-covered lattice work, checkering the flooring in fanciful designs, a girl raised herself suddenly on her elbow from a reclining chair, and, reaching out her hand, laid it impulsively on that of another girl who sat in a chair beside her.
 
"Oh, Dora," she breathed, "it's just like fairyland!"
 
Dora Marlin smiled quietly.
 
"What a queer little creature you are, Polly!" she said. "You like it here, don't you?"
 
"I love it!" said Polly Wickes.
 
"Fairyland!" Dora Marlin repeated the word. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a real fairyland just like the stories they used to read to us as children?"
 
Polly Wickes nodded her head slowly.
 
"I suppose so," she said; "but I never had any fairy stories read to me when I was a child, and so my fairyland has always been one of my own—one of dreams. And this is fairyland because it's so beautiful, and because being here doesn't seem as though one were living in the same world one was born in at all."
 
"You poor child!" said Dora Marlin softly. "A land of dreams, then! Yes; I know. These nights are like that sometimes, aren't they? They make you dream any dream you want to have come true, and, while you dream wide awake, you almost actually experience its fulfilment then and there. And so it is nearly as good as a real fairyland, isn't it? And anyway, Polly, you look like a really, truly fairy yourself to-night."
 
"No," said Polly Wickes. "You are the fairy. Fairies aren't supposed to be dark; they have golden hair, and blue eyes, and—"
 
"A wand," interrupted Dora Marlin, with a mischievous little laugh. "And if it weren't all just make-believe, and I was the fairy, I'd wave my wand and have him appear instantly on the scene; but, as it is, I'm afraid he won't come to-night after all, and it's getting late, and I think we'd better go to bed."
 
"And I'm sure he will come, and anyway I couldn't go to bed," said Polly Wickes earnestly. "And anyway I couldn't go to sleep. Just think, Dora, I haven't seen him for nearly four years, and I'll have all the news, and hear everything I want to know about mother. He said they'd leave the mainland to-day, and it's only five hours across. I'm sure he'll still come. And, besides, I'm certain I heard a motor boat a few minutes ago."
 
"Very likely," agreed Dora Marlin; "but that was probably one of our own men out somewhere around the island. It's very late now, and in half an hour it will be low tide, and they would hardly start at all if they knew they wouldn't make Manwa by daylight. There are the reefs, and—"
 
"The reefs are charted," said Polly Wickes decisively. "I know he'll come."
 
A little ripple of laughter came from Dora Marlin's chair.
 
"How old is Captain Newcombe, dear?" she inquired na?vely.
 
"Don't be a beast, Dora," said Polly Wickes severely. "He's very, very old—at least he was when I saw him last."
 
"When you weren't much more than fourteen," observed Dora Marlin judicially. "And when you're fourteen anybody over thirty is a regular Methuselah. I know I used to think when I was a child that father was terribly, terribly old, much older than he seems to-day when he really is an old man; and I used to wonder then how he lived so long."
 
Polly Wickes' dark eyes grew serious.
 
"It doesn't apply to me," she said in a low tone. "I wasn't ever a child. I was old when I was ten. I've told you all about myself, because I couldn't have come here with you if I hadn't; and you know why I am so eager and excited and so happy that guardy is coming. I owe him everything in the world I've got; and he's been so good to mother. I—I don't know why. He said when I was older I would understand. And he's such a wonderful man himself, with such a splendid war record."
 
Dora Marlin rose from her chair, and placed her arm affectionately around her companion's shoulders.
 
"Yes, dear," she said gently. "I know. I was only teasing. And you wouldn't be Polly Wickes if you wanted to do anything else than just sit here and wait until you were quite, quite sure that he wouldn't come to-night. But as I'm already sure he won't because it's so late, I'm going to bed. You don't mind, do you, dear? I want to see if father's all right, too. Poor old dad!"
 
"Dora!" Polly Wickes was on her feet. "Oh, Dora, I'm so selfish! I—I wish I could help. But I'm sure it's going to be all right. I don't think that specialist was right at all. How could he be? Mr. Marlin is such a dear!"
 
Dora Marlin turned her head away, and for a moment she did not speak. When she looked around again there was a bright, quick smile on her lips.
 
"I am counting a lot on Captain Newcombe's and Mr. Locke's visit," she said. "I'm sure it will do father good. Good-night, dear—and if they do come, telephone up to my room and I'll be down in a jiffy. Their rooms are all ready for them, but they're sure to be famished, and—"
 
"I'll do nothing of the sort!" announced Polly Wickes. "The idea of upsetting a household in the middle of the night! I'll send them back to their yacht."
 
"You won't do anything of the kind!" said Dora Marlin.
 
"Yes, I will," said Polly Wickes.
 
"Well, he won't come anyway," said Dora Marlin.
 
"Yes, he will!"
 
"No, he won't!"
 
They both began to laugh.
 
"But I'll tell you what I'll do," said Polly Wickes. "After he's gone I'll creep into bed with you and tell you all about it. Good-night, dear."
 
"Good-night, Polly fairy," said Dora Marlin.
 
Polly Wickes watched the white form weave itself in and out of the checkered spots of moonlight along the verandah, and finally disappear inside the house; then she threw herself down upon the reclining chair again, her hands clasped behind her head, and lay there, strangely alert, wide-eyed, staring out on the lawn.
 
She was quite sure he would come—even yet—because when they had sent over to the mainland for the mail yesterday there had been a letter from him saying he would arrive some time to-day.
 
How soft the night was!
 
Would he be changed; would he seem very different? Had what Dora had said about the viewpoint from which age measures age been really true? And if it were? She was the one who would seem changed—from a little girl in pigtails to a woman, not a very old woman, but a woman. Would he know her, recognise her again?
 
What a wonderful, glorious, dreamy night it was!
 
Dreams! Was she dreaming even now, dreaming wide awake, that she was here; a dream that supplanted the squalour of narrow, ill-lighted streets, of dark, creaking staircases, of lurking, hungry shapes, of stalking vice, of homes that were single, airless rooms gaunt with poverty—a dream that supplanted all that for this, where there was only a world of beautiful things, and where even the airs that whispered through the trees were balmy with some rare perfume that intoxicated the senses with untold joy?
 
She startled herself with a sharp little cry. Pictures, memories, vivid, swift in succession, were flashing, unbidden, through her mind—a girl in ragged clothes who sold flowers on the st............