Silva looked a little sorry when Maia spoke thus.
'Don't say that, Maia,' she said. 'Godmother wouldn't like it. We want to make you happy while you're here—not to make you impatient. If you and Rollo were always at the cottage, you wouldn't like it half so much as you do now, coming sometimes. You would soon get tired of it, unless you worked hard like Waldo and me.'
'Do you work hard?' said Maia, with some surprise.
'Yes, of course we do. You only see us at our play-time. Waldo goes off to the forester's at the other side of the wood every morning at six, and I take him his dinner every day, and then I stay there and work in the dairy till we come home together in the evening.'
'But you sometimes have holidays,' said Maia.
'Yes, of course we do,' said Silva, smiling. 'Godmother sees to that.'
'How?' asked Maia. 'Does she know the forester and his wife? Does she go and ask them to give you a holiday?'
'Not exactly,' said Silva, smiling. 'I can't tell you how she does it. She has her own ways for doing everything. How does she get you your holidays?'
'Does she get us them?' said Maia, astonished. 'Why, Lady Venelda never speaks of her. Do you think she knows her?'
'I can't tell you,' said Silva, again smiling in the same rather strange way as before, and somehow when she smiled like that she reminded Maia of godmother herself; 'but she does know somebody at the white castle, and somebody there knows her.'
'The old doctor!' exclaimed Maia, clapping her hands. 'I'm sure you mean the old doctor. Ah! that's how it is, is it? Godmother sends to the old doctor or writes to him, or—or—I don't know what—and then he finds out we need a holiday, and—oh, he manages it somehow, I suppose!'
'Yes,' said Silva; 'but as long as you get your holiday it's all right. When godmother tells us of anything we're to do, or that she has settled for us, we're quite pleased without asking her all the little bits about it.'
'I see,' said Maia; 'but then, Silva, you're different from me.'
'Of course I am,' said Silva; 'but it wouldn't be at all nice if everybody was the same. That's one of the things godmother always says.'
'Yes, like what she says about how stupid it would be if we knew everything, and if there was nothing more to puzzle and wonder about. It is nice to wonder and puzzle sometimes, but not always. Just now I don't mind about anything except about the fun of going so fast, with those dear little ponies' bells tinkling all the way. I shall be so sorry to get to the cottage, for we shan't have time to go in, Silva. We shall have to hurry home not to be too late for supper.'
Just as she spoke Waldo pulled up sharply.
'What's the matter?' called out Maia. She had been talking so much to Silva that she had not noticed the way they were going. Now she looked about her, and it seemed to her that she recognised the look of the trees, which were much less close and thick than in the middle of the forest. But before she had time to think more about it a voice close at hand made both her and Rollo start.
'Well, young people,' it said, 'you have had, I hope, a pleasant day? You, too, Waldo and Silva? It is some time since I have seen you, my children.'
It was, of course, the voice of the doctor. All the four jumped out of the little carriage and ran forward to their old friend, for to Rollo's and Maia's surprise, the two forest children seemed to know him quite as well as they did themselves.
He seemed delighted to see them all, and his kind old face shone with pleasure as he patted the curly heads of the boys and Maia, and stroked gently Silva's pretty, smooth hair.
'But you must go home,' he said to Waldo and Silva. 'Good-night, my children;' and quickly bidding their little friends farewell, the brother and sister sprang up again into the tiny carriage, and in another moment the more and more faintly-tinkling bells were all left of them, as Rollo and Maia stood a little sadly, gazing in the direction in which they had disappeared.
'And you have been happy?' said the old doctor.
'Very happy,' both replied together. 'We have had such fun.' But before they had time to tell their old friend anything more he interrupted them.
'You, too, must hurry home,' he said. 'You see where you are? Up the path to the right and you will come out at the usual place just behind the castle wall at the back.'
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 rushing 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 assure 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 godmother 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
