All the bright , beautiful things around it mocked it and laughed at it for its folly . Who would ever look for music in it , a plain , brown , unbeautiful thing ? But one day a youth came through the wood ; he was as beautiful as the spring ; he cut the brown reed and fashioned it according to his liking ; and then he put it to his lips and breathed on it ; and , oh , the music that floated through the forest ! It was so entrancing that everything -- brooks and birds and winds -- grew silent to listen to it . Never had anything so lovely been heard ; it was the music that had for so long been shut up in the soul of the sighing reed and was set free at last through its pain and suffering . I had heard the Story Girl tell many a more dramatic tale ; but that one stands out for me in memory above them all , partly , perhaps , because of the spot in which she told it , partly because it was the last one I was to hear her tell for many years -- the last one she was ever to tell me on the golden road . When Uncle Blair had finished his sketch the shafts of sunshine were turning crimson and growing more and more remote ; the early autumn twilight was falling over the woods . We left our dell , saying good-bye to it for ever , as the Story Girl had suggested , and we went slowly homeward through the fir woods , where a haunting , indescribable odour stole out to meet us . `` There is magic in the scent of dying fir , '' Uncle Blair was saying aloud to himself , as if forgetting he was not quite alone . `` It gets into our blood like some rare , subtly-compounded wine , and thrills us with unutterable sweetnesses , as of recollections from some other fairer life , lived in some happier star . Compared to it , all other scents seem heavy and earth-born , luring to the valleys instead of the heights . But the tang of the fir summons onward and upward to some ` far-off , divine event ' -- some spiritual peak of attainment whence we shall see with unfaltering , unclouded vision the spires of some aerial City Beautiful , or the fulfilment of some fair , fadeless land of promise . '' He was silent for a moment , then added in a lower tone , `` Felicity , you loved the scent of dying fir . If you were here tonight with me -- Felicity -- Felicity ! '' Something in his voice made me suddenly sad . I was comforted when I felt the Story Girl slip her hand into mine . So we walked out of the woods into the autumn dusk . We were in a little valley . Half-way up the opposite slope a brush fire was burning clearly and steadily in a maple grove . There was something indescribably alluring in that fire , glowing so redly against the dark background of forest and twilit hill .
`` Let us go to it , '' cried Uncle XXXXX , gaily , casting aside his sorrowful mood and catching our hands .
Blair day fulfilment left odour scents sweetnesses twilight twilit years