Part 17 (1/2)

Rollo and Maia hastened to obey him.

'How queer he is!' said Maia. 'He doesn't seem to care to hear what we've been doing--he never asks anything but if we've been happy.'

'Well, what does it matter?' said Rollo. 'I like only to talk to ourselves of the queer things we see when we're with Waldo and Silva. I wonder what they will show us or where they will take us the next time?'

'So do I,' said Maia.

'Waldo said something about the eagles that live up in the high rocks at the edge of the forest,' said Rollo. 'He did not exactly say so, but he spoke as if he had been there. Wouldn't you like to see an eagles' nest, Maia?'

'I should think so, indeed!' replied Maia eagerly. 'But I don't think that's what they call it, Rollo; there's another name.'

'Yes, I think there is, but I can't remember it,' he answered. 'But never mind, Maia, here we are at the gate. We must run in and get ready for supper.'

CHAPTER IX.

A COMMITTEE OF BIRDS.

'Then a sound is heard, A sudden rus.h.i.+ng sound of many wings.'

Nothing was asked of the children as to where or how they had spent their day. Lady Venelda looked at them kindly as they took their places at the supper-table, and she kissed them when they said good-night as if she were quite pleased with them. They were not sorry to go to bed; for however delightful squirrel gymnastics are, they are somewhat fatiguing, especially to those who are not accustomed to them, and I can a.s.sure you that Rollo and Maia slept soundly that night; thanks to which, no doubt, they woke next morning as fresh as larks.

Their lessons were all done to the satisfaction of their teachers, so that in the afternoon, when, as they were setting off with Nanni for their usual walk, they met the old doctor on the terrace, he nodded at them good-humouredly.

'That's right,' he said; 'holidays do you no harm, I see.'

'And we may have another before very long, then, mayn't we?' said Maia, whose little tongue was always the readiest.

'All in good time,' said the old man, and as they had found his memory so good hitherto, the children felt that they might trust him for the future.

They did not go in the direction of the cottage to-day. Though they had not exactly been told so, they had come to understand that when G.o.dmother wanted them, or had arranged some pleasure for them and her forest children, she would find some means of letting them know, and the sort of desire to please and obey her which they felt seemed even stronger than if her wishes had been put down in plain rules. And when Nanni was with them they now took care not to speak of the cottage or their friends there, for she could not have understood about them, and she would only have been troubled and frightened. But yet the thought of Waldo and Silva and G.o.dmother and the cottage, and all the pleasure and fun they had had, seemed never quite away. It hovered about them like the impression of a happy dream, which seems to make the whole day brighter, though we can scarcely tell how.

The spring was now coming on fast; and what _can_ be more delightful than spring-time in the woods? With the increasing warmth and suns.h.i.+ne the scent of the pines seemed to waft out into the air, the primroses and violets opened their eyes, and the birds overhead twittered and trilled in their perfect happiness.

'How can any one be so cruel as to shoot them?' said Maia one afternoon about a week after the visit to the squirrels.

'I don't think any one would shoot these tiny birds,' said Rollo.

'I am afraid they do in some countries,' said Maia. 'Not here; I don't think G.o.dmother would let them. I think n.o.body can do anything in these woods against her wishes,' she went on in a lower tone, glancing in Nanni's direction. But that young woman was knitting away calmly, with an expression of complete content on her rosy face.

'Rollo,' Maia continued, 'come close to me. I want to speak in a whisper;' and Rollo, who, like his sister, was stretched at full length on the ground, thickly carpeted with the tiny dry-brown spikes which had fallen from the fir-trees during the winter, edged himself along by his elbows without getting up, till he was near enough to hear Maia's lowest murmur.

'Lazy boy,' she said, laughing. 'Is it too much trouble to move?'

'It's too much trouble to stand up any way,' replied Rollo. 'What is it you want to say, Maia? I do think there's something in these woods that puts one to sleep, as Nanni says.'

'So do I,' said Maia, and her voice had a half sleepy sound as she spoke. 'I don't quite know what I wanted to say, Rollo. It was only something about _them_, you know.'

'You needn't be the least afraid--Nanni can't hear,' said Rollo, without moving.