quisite, invisible presences—all to the soft sound of little Vertebrata’s piping. And she piped, and piped, on the lovely, reedy, blow-on-it instrument, and she made sweet music. And for the first time in her little life, her practising became to her not merely practising, but music-making—there, while she watched the strange Time-shadow move.
“J—о—у!” cried the Seconds, talking among themselves. “People are beginning to know about us. It is time that they should.”
“Ah!” they cried again. “We can go faster than anything.”
“Think of all of our poor brothers and sisters that have gone, without anybody knowing they were here,” they mourned.
“Pipe, pipe, pipe,” went Vertebrata, and the little Seconds danced by almost as if she were making them with her piping.
The Minutes, too, said things to one another—who knows if Time is so silent as we imagine? May not all sorts of delicate conversations go on in the heart of time about which we never know anything—Second talking with Second, and Minute answering to Minute; and the grave Hours, listening to everything we say and seeing
