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Sara was sure her father had told her it was just the other way around; but she was too happy to argue. So, to change the subject, she asked Pirlaps very respectfully where they were going. "To Zinariola, Sara to the City. You've never been there, have you?"
"No," was all Avrillia said, but her voice made Sara's heart quiver, for in the sound of it she seemed to hear the temple-bells, and the fairy hand-organ she had heard in the steep street at Zinariola, and the drowsy tinkle of the fountain in the Butterfly Palace, and the little Laughs that leaped about the mountain, and the morning and evening sheep-bells, all gathered together into one sound that seemed to say that presently she would have to say good-by to Avrillia.
They caught the scallop-shell boat, though they had to run for it, and they were quite quiet all the way home. Avrillia sat by the rail, watching the gulls, and dreaming; and Sara strained her eyes for a long time to catch the last glimpse of the little magic, toy City of Zinariola.
Any city was a wide-eyed place to Sara; so what of the wonder of a fairy city? To be sure, many of them were foreign-looking, like the ones who followed the organ-man, and in other ways, too; still, as Zinariola was a seaport, it was very cosmopolitan, and one saw all sorts of people on its streets.
Never, never had Sara been there; and she began immediately trying to build that lovely city in her mind the frail spires, and the rich bazaars, dusky and spicy and full of brocades and silks, and the little narrow, climbing streets. But, though it was a pleasure to try, she knew she could not imagine anything so strange and charming as the real City of Zinariola would be.
Moreover, it seemed to Sara to include even more distant things; the Rainbow Vale and the Butterfly Country, and the colony where lived the relations of Pirlaps, and the Laughter Mountain and Avrillia's house and the magic toy City of Zinariola.
This visit of Sara's took place before automobiles were introduced into Zinariola, and the carriages were drawn by devil's horses. Of these Sara was frankly afraid they reared so, and turned their heads so weirdly on their long green necks. Sara noticed one in particular, which was drawing a carriage in a wedding procession that was just leaving a church.
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