Angel Island

At the water's edge four children were playing. Honey-Boy had waded out

waist-deep. A sturdy, dark, strong-bodied, tiny replica of his father,

he stood in an exact reproduction of one of Honey's poses, his arms

folded over his little pouter-pigeon chest, lips pursed, brows frowning,

dimples inhibited, gazing into the water. Just beyond, one foot on the

bottom, Peterkin pretended to swim. Peterkin had an unearthly beauty

that was half Clara's coloring - combination of tawny hair with

gray-green eyes - and half Pete's expression - the look, doubly strange,

of the Celt and the genius. Slender and beautifully formed, graceful, he

was in every possible way a contrast to virile little Billy-Boy; he was

even elegant; he had the look of a story-book prince. Far up the beach,

cuddled in a warm puddle, naked, sat a fat, redheaded baby, Frank

Merrill, junior. He watched the others intently for a while. Then

breaking into a grin which nearly bisected the face under the fiery

thatch, he began an imitative paddle with his pudgy hands and feet.

Flitting hither and yon, hovering one moment at the water's edge and

another at Junior's side, moving with a capricious will-o'-the-wisp

motion that dominated the whole picture, flew Angela.

Beautiful as the other children were, they sank to commonplaces in

contrast with Angela.

For Angela was a being of faery. Her single loose garment, serrated at

the edges, knee-length, and armless, left slits at the back for a pair

of wings to emerge. Tiny these wings were, and yet they were perfect in

form; they soared above her head, soft, fine, shining, delicate as

milkweed-down and of a white that was beginning, near the shoulders, to

deepen to a pale rose. Angela's little body was as slender as a

flower-stem. Her limbs showed but the faintest of curves, her skin but

the faintest of tints. Almost transparent in the sunlight, she had in

the shadow the coloring of the opal, pale rose-pinks and pale

violet-blues. Her hair floated free to her shoulders; and that, more

than any other detail, seemed to accent the quality of faery in her

personality. In calm it clung to her head like a pale-gold mist; in

breeze it floated away like a pale-gold nimbus. It seemed as though a

shake of her head would send it drifting off - a huge thistle-down of

gold. Her eyes reflected the tint of whatever blue they gazed on,

whether it was the frank azure of the sky or the mysterious turquoise of

the sea. And yet their look was strangely intent. When she passed from

shadow to sunshine, the light seemed to dissolve her hair and

wing-edges, as though it were gradually taking her to itself.