Part 12 (1/2)

G.o.dmother smiled. 'Perhaps,' she said. But when Maia went on questioning, she would not say any more. 'Keep something to puzzle about,' she said. 'Remember that that is half the pleasure.'

And then she took Maia up on her knee and gave her such a sweet kiss that the child could not grumble.

'You are _very_ funny, G.o.dmother,' she repeated.

Suddenly Rollo started.

'Maia,' he exclaimed, 'I am afraid we are forgetting about going home and meeting Nanni and everything. It must be getting very late. It is so queer,' he added with a sigh, glancing round the dear little kitchen, 'I seemed to have forgotten that _this_ isn't our home, and yet we have only been here an hour or two, and----'

'Yes,' said Maia, 'I feel just the same. Indeed Aureole and her pets seem far more real to me now than Lady Venelda and the white castle.'

'And the old doctor and all the lessons you have to do,' said G.o.dmother; and somehow the children no longer felt surprised at her knowing all about everything. 'But you are right, my boy, good boy,' she went on, turning to Rollo. 'There is a time for all things, and now it is time to go back to your other life. Say good-bye to each other, my children,'

and when they had done so--very reluctantly, you may be sure--she took Rollo by one hand and Maia by the other, Waldo and Silva standing at the cottage-door to see them off, and led them across the little clearing, away into the now darkening alleys of the wood.

'Are you going with us to where Nanni is?' asked Maia.

'Not to where you left her. I will take you by a short cut,' said G.o.dmother, who, since they had left the cottage, had seemed to grow into just an ordinary-looking old peasant woman, very bent and small, for any one at least who did not peep far enough inside her queer hood to see her wonderful eyes and gleaming hair, and whom no one would have suspected of the marvellous crimson dress under the long dark cloak.

Maia kept peeping up at her with a strange look in her face.

'What is it, my child?' said G.o.dmother.

'I don't quite know,' Maia replied. 'I'm not quite sure, G.o.dmother, if I'm not a little--a very little--frightened of you. You change so. In the cottage you seemed a sort of a young fairy G.o.dmother--and now----'

she hesitated.

'And now do I seem very old?'

'_Rather_,' said Maia.

'Well, listen now. I'll tell you the real truth, strange as it may seem.

I am _very_ old--older than you can even fancy, and yet I am and I always shall be young.'

'In fairyland--in the other country, do you mean?' asked Rollo.

G.o.dmother turned her bright eyes full upon him. 'Not only there, my boy,' she said. 'Here, too--everywhere--I am both old and young.'

Maia gave a little sigh.

'You are very nice, G.o.dmother,' she said, 'but you are _very_ puzzling.'

But she had no time to say more, for just then G.o.dmother stopped.

'See, children,' she said, pointing down a little path among the trees, 'I have brought you a short cut, as I said I would. At the end of that alley you will find your faithful Nanni. And that will not be the end of the short cut. Twenty paces straight on in the same direction you will come out of the wood. Cross the little bridge across the brook and you will only have to climb a tiny hill to find yourselves at the back entrance of the castle. All will be right--and now good-bye, my dears, till your next holiday. Have you your flowers?'

'Oh, yes,' exclaimed both, holding up the pretty bunches as they spoke; 'but how are we to----'

'Don't trouble about how you are to see me again,' she interrupted, smiling. 'It will come--you will see,' and then before they had time to wonder any more, she turned from them, waving her hand in farewell, and disappeared.

'Rollo,' said Maia, rubbing her eyes as if she had just awakened, 'Rollo, is it all _real_? Don't you feel as if you had been dreaming?'

'No,' said Rollo. 'I feel as if _it_'--and he nodded his head backwards in the direction of the cottage--'were all real, and the castle and our cousin and Nanni and all _not_ real. You said so too.'