sort of rhapsody that set every thought
to wild music.

To Pem it was as she had dreamed it
would be, away back in her father's laboratory,
before the February train wreck.

Hands seemed reaching out to her from
everywhere,--she the satellite reflecting
her father's light.

From the four quarters of the habitable
earth eyes seemed trained upon her, as
she knelt in a little island of flashlight,
with her thumb on an electric button
which, connected by wires with a platform
about a hundred feet away, would
throw the switch and release the magic
Bird to flying.

"N-now, keep cool, Pem! Don't get
excited--too ex-ci-ted--or-r you may
miss the moment when they shout to you:
' R-ready! Shoot!' " breathed Una, so
wrought up herself that her words had a
sort of little zip, a hiss, in them, like the
soft sighing of the breeze at the moment.

Pemrose knew that her father's thoughts
[[233]]

p232 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p233w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p234

v?