The woods receded from it on every hand , leaving it lying in a pool of amber sunshine . The yellow trees were mirrored in the placid stream , with now and then a leaf falling on the water , mayhap to drift away and be used , as Uncle Blair suggested , by some adventurous wood sprite who had it in mind to fare forth to some far-off , legendary region where all the brooks ran into the sea . `` Oh , what a lovely place ! '' I exclaimed , looking around me with delight . `` A spell of eternity is woven over it , surely , '' murmured Uncle Blair . `` Winter may not touch it , or spring ever revisit it . It should be like this for ever . '' `` Let us never come here again , '' said the Story Girl softly , `` never , no matter how often we may be in Carlisle . Then we will never see it changed or different . We can always remember it just as we see it now , and it will be like this for ever for us . '' `` I 'm going to sketch it , '' said Uncle Blair . While he sketched it the Story Girl and I sat on the banks of the brook and she told me the story of the Sighing Reed . It was a very simple little story , that of the slender brown reed which grew by the forest pool and always was sad and sighing because it could not utter music like the brook and the birds and the winds . 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 XXXXX 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 .
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