Part 19 (1/2)

'It was wings,' he said. 'Quite a flight of birds have just flown off from under the roof.'

'Ah,' said Maia, nodding her head mysteriously, 'I thought so. Well, Rollo, _I_ don't intend to go to sleep to-night, whether you do or not.'

Rollo shook his head.

'I shall wake if there's anything to wake for,' he said. 'I'm much more sure of doing that than you can be of keeping awake.'

'Why, I couldn't _go_ to sleep if I thought there was going to be anything to wake for,' said Maia.

Before long they were both in bed. Rollo laid his head on the pillow without troubling himself about keeping awake or going to sleep. Maia, on the contrary, kept her eyes as wide open as she could. It was a moonlight night; the objects in the room stood out in sharp black shadow against the bright radiance, seeming to take queer fantastic forms which made her every minute start up, feeling sure that she saw some one or something beside her bedside. And every time that she found it a mistake she felt freshly disappointed. At last, quite tired with expecting she knew not what, she turned her face to the wall and shut her eyes.

'Stupid things that they all are!' she said to herself. 'G.o.dmother, and the birds, and Waldo, and Silva, and the old doctor, and everybody.

They've no business to promise us treats, and then never do anything about them. I shan't think any more about it, that I won't. I believe it's all a pretence.'

Which you will, I am sure, agree with me in thinking not very reasonable on Maia's part!

She fell asleep at last, and, as might have been expected, much more soundly than usual. When she woke, it was from a deep, dreamless slumber, but with the feeling that for some time some one had been calling her, and that she had been slow of rousing herself.

'What is it?' she called out, sitting up in bed, and trying to wink the sleep out of her eyes. 'Who is there?'

'Maia!' a voice replied. A voice that seemed to come from a great distance, and yet to reach her as clearly as any sound she had ever heard in her life. 'Maia, are you ready?'

Up sprang Maia.

'G.o.dmother, is it you calling me?' she said. 'Oh, yes, it must be you!

I'll be ready in a moment, G.o.dmother. If I could but find my shoes and stockings! Oh, dear! oh, dear! and I meant to keep awake all night. I've been expecting you such a long time.'

'I know,' said the voice, quite close beside her this time; 'you have been expecting me too much,' and, glancing round, Maia saw in the moonlight--right _in_ the moonlight, looking indeed almost as if the bright rays came from her--a shadowy silvery figure, quite different from G.o.dmother as she had hitherto known her, but which, nevertheless, she knew in a moment could be no one else. Maia flung her arms round her and kissed her.

'Yes,' she said, 'now I'm _quite_ sure it's you and not a dream. No dream has cheeks so soft as yours, G.o.dmother, and no one else kisses like you. Your kisses are just like violets. But what am I to do? Must I get dressed at once?'

G.o.dmother pa.s.sed her hands softly round the child. She seemed to stroke her.

'You are dressed,' she said. 'The clothes you wear generally would be too heavy, so I brought some with me. You do not need shoes and stockings.'

But Maia was looking at herself with too much surprise almost to hear what she said. 'Dressed,' yes, indeed! She was dressed as never before in her life, and though she turned herself about, and stroked herself like a little bird proud of its plumage, she could not find out of what her dress was made, nor what exactly was its colour. Was it velvet, or satin, or plush? Was it green or blue?

'I know,' she cried at last joyously; 'it's the same stuff your red dress is made of, G.o.dmother! Oh, how nice, and soft, and warm, and light all together it is! I feel as if I could jump up to the sky.'

'And not be seen when you got there,' said G.o.dmother. 'The colour of your dress _is_ sky colour, Maia. But when you have finished admiring yourself we must go--the others have been ready ever so long. They had not been expecting me _too_ much, like you, and so they were ready all the quicker.'

'Do you mean Rollo?' said Maia. 'Rollo, and Silva, and Waldo?'

G.o.dmother nodded her head.

'I'm ready now, any way,' said Maia.

'Give me your hand,' said G.o.dmother, and taking it she held it firm, and led Maia to the window. To the little girl's surprise it was wide open.

G.o.dmother, still holding her hand, softly whistled--once, twice, three times. Then stood quietly waiting.