Dusk came and finally a small moonlit creature came out of the shadows.
"I've lost something," she said, plaintively.
"You too?" said Francis. "Well, what is it?"
"I don't know," she said.
"How absurd. How can you look for --"
"I don't know what it's called," she said.
"Well, then, describe it for me."
"It's warm, weightless, indescribably precious and is constantly running away from me."
"Puzzling," said Francis, delighted. "I'll help you look for it."
And together they combed the moonlit forest. On the first night, they found an old tin spoon which Francis polished carefully.
"Is this it?" he asked although he couldn't really see how a spoon could run away from anything.
"No," she said.
They searched again the next night and found a broken string of pearls. Pearls could roll away and they were warm if you held them in the palm of your hand. And they were almost weightless.
"No." she said.
Finally they found a piece of foil and a glass shard. Perhaps it was a mirror she was looking for.
"No," she said yet again.
" Well," said Francis," where do you go during the day? I can't really see so well at night."
"I am the day."
"What?"
"I ride the chair in the sun--I rock it back and forth across the heavens, maneuvering it between the black holes and the nebulas."
"Can't you rest one day--can't the sun find its own way?"
So the next day, the little girl from the sun sat on earth on a hill.
"It's this," she cried, pointing to the freckles on her skin, the rosy burn on her face.
"Spots?" said Francis.
"No, the heat," she said.
"You mean, sunlight--sunrays?"
"Sunlight--it's the red sunlight," she said, closing her eyes.
"But you live in the center of the sun."
"No, no, you see, all the sunrays point outwards and rush away, they're always running away from me towards the earth. I would reach out and they would run away--I was so cold, always so cold."
"And how are you now?" asked Francis, for the little girl was glowing and flickering like a flame.