And when, in the great equinoctial storm of the previous year, three giant oaks lay shattered and broken, the sight had caused her deep grief, until she wove a legend about them and turned them into monsters for Perseus to subdue with Medusa's head.

One, indeed, whose trunk was gnarled and twisted, became the serpent of the brazen scales who sleepeth not, guarding the Golden Fleece.
"As the tree falls so shall it lie," seemed to be the motto of La Sarthe Chase.

For none were removed.
Halcyone stretched out her arms and beckoned to her fairy friends.
"Queen Mab," she called, "come and dance nearer to me--I can see your wings and I want to talk to you to-day!" And as if in answer to this invitation, the rays of the lowered sun shifted to an opening almost at her feet, and with a cry of joy the child began to dance in the gorgeous light.
"Come follow, follow me, ye fairy elves that be," she sang softly.
And the sprites laughed with gladness, and gilded her mouse hair with gold, and lit up her eyes, and wove scarves about her with gossamer threads, and beneath her feet tall bluebells offered their heads as a carpet.
But Halcyone sprang over them, she would not have crushed the meanest weed.
"Queen Mab!" she said at last, as she sat down in the middle of the sunlight, "I have found an old gentleman--and he is Cheiron, and if one could see it in the right light, he may have a horse's body, and he is going to teach me just what Jason learnt--and then I shall tell it to you." The rays shifted again to a path beyond, and Halcyone bounded up and went on her way.
Old William was drawing the elder Miss La Sarthe in a dilapidated basket-chair, up and down on the highest terrace.

She held a minute faded pink silk parasol over her head--it had an ivory handle which folded up when she no longer needed the parasol as a shade.

She wore one-buttoned gloves, of slate-colored kid, and a wrist-band of black velvet clasped with a buckle.