Christmas-Tree Land

Here Rollo interrupted her.

'Maia,' he said, 'you really shouldn't talk so fast. Silva could not answer all those questions at once if she wanted; and perhaps she doesn't want to answer them all. It's rude to ask so much.'

Maia looked up innocently into Silva's face.

'I didn't mean to be rude,' she said, 'only you see I can't help wondering.'

'We don't mind your asking anything you like,' Silva replied. 'But I don't think I can tell you all you want to know. You'll get to see for yourself. Waldo and I have lived here a long time, but not always!'

'But your godmother,' went on Maia; 'I do so want to know about her. Does she live here? Is it she that the people about call a witch?' Maia lowered her voice a little at the last word, and looked up at Rollo apprehensively. Would not he think speaking of witches still ruder than asking questions? But Silva did not seem to mind.

'I dare say they do,' she said quietly. 'They don't know her, you see. I don't think she would care if they did call her a witch. But now the coffee is ready,' for she had been going on with her preparations meanwhile, 'will you sit round the table?'

'We are not very hungry,' said Rollo, 'for we had our dinner in the wood. But the coffee smells so good,' and he drew in his chair as he spoke. Maia, however, hesitated.

'Would it not be more polite, perhaps,' she said to Silva, 'to wait a little for your godmother? You said she would be coming soon.'

'She doesn't like us to wait for her,' said Silva. 'We always put her place ready, for sometimes she comes and sometimes she doesn't – we never know. But she says it is best just to go on regularly, and then we need not lose any time.'

'I don't think I should like that way,' said Maia. 'Would you, Rollo? If father was coming to see us, I would like to know it quite settledly ever so long before, and plan all about it.'

'But it isn't quite the same,' said Silva. 'Your father is far away. Our godmother is never very far away – it is just a nice feeling that she may come any time, like the sunshine or the wind.'

'Well, perhaps it is,' said Maia. 'I dare say I shall understand when I've seen her. How very good this coffee is, Silva, and the little cakes! Did your godmother teach you to make them so nice?'

'Not exactly,' said Silva; 'but she made me like doing things well. She made me see how pretty it is to do things rightly —quite rightly, just as they should be.'

'And do you always do things that way?' exclaimed Maia, very much impressed. 'I don't; I'm very often dreadfully untidy, and sometimes my exercise-books are full of blots and mistakes. I wish I had had your godmother to teach me, Silva.'

'Well, you're going to have her now. She teaches without one knowing it. But I'm not perfect, nor is Waldo! Indeed we're not – and if we thought we were it would show we weren't.'

'Besides,' said Waldo, 'all the things we have to do are very simple and easy. We don't know anything about the world, and all we should have to do and learn if we lived there.'

'Should you like to live there?' asked Maia. Both Waldo and Silva hesitated. Then both, with the grave expression in their eyes that came there sometimes, replied, 'I don't know;' but Waldo in a moment or two added, 'If it had to be, it would be right to like it.'

'Yes,' said Silva quietly. But something in their tone made both Rollo and Maia feel puzzled.

'I do believe you're both half fairies,' exclaimed Maia with a little impatience; 'I can't make you out at all.'

Rollo felt the same, though, being more considerate than his little sister, he did not like to express his feelings so freely. But Waldo and Silva only laughed merrily.

'No, no, indeed we're not,' they said more than once, but Maia did not seem convinced by any means, and she was going on to maintain that no children who weren't half fairies could live like that by themselves and manage everything so beautifully, when a slight noise at the door and a sudden look of pleasure on Silva's face made her stop short and look round.

'Here she is,' exclaimed Waldo and Silva together. 'Oh, godmother, darling, we are so glad. And they have come, Rollo and Maia have come, just as you said.'

And thus saying they sprang forward. Their godmother stooped and kissed both on the forehead.

'Dear children,' she said, and then she turned to the two strangers, who were gazing at her with all their eyes.

'Can it be she the silly people about call a witch?' Maia was saying to herself. 'It might be, and yet I don't know. Could any one call her a witch?'

She was old – of that there was no doubt, at least so it seemed at the first glance. Her hair was perfectly white, her face was very pale. But her eyes were the most wonderful thing about her. Maia could not tell what colour they were. They seemed to change with every word she said, with every new look that came over her face. Old as she was they were very bright and beautiful, very soft and sweet too, though not the sort of eyes – Maia said afterwards to Rollo – 'that I would like to look at me if I had been naughty.' Godmother was not tall; when she first came into the little kitchen she seemed to stoop a little, and did not look much bigger than Silva. And she was all covered over with a dark green cloak, almost the colour of the darkest of the foliage of the fir-trees.

'One would hardly see her if she were walking about the woods,' thought Maia, 'except that her face and hair are so white, they would gleam out like snow.'

CHAPTER V.

THE STORY OF A KING'S DAUGHTER

'Gentle and sweet is she;
As the heart of a rose is her heart,
As soft and as fair and as sweet.'

    Liliput Lectures.
Godmother turned to the little strangers. The two pairs of blue eyes were still fixed upon her. Her eyes looked very kind and gentle, and yet very 'seeing', as she caught their gaze.

'I believe,' thought Maia, 'that she can tell all we are thinking;' and Rollo had something of the same idea, yet neither of them felt the least afraid of her.

'Rollo and Maia, dear children, too,' she said, 'we are so pleased to see you.'

'And we are very pleased to be here,' said they; 'but – ' and then they hesitated.

'You are puzzled how it is I know your names, and all about you, are you not?' she said, smiling. 'I puzzle most children at first; but isn't it rather nice to be puzzled?'

This was a new idea. Thinking it over, they began to find there was something in it.

'I think it is,' both replied, smiling a little.

'If you knew all about everything, and could see through everything, there wouldn't be much interest left. Nothing to find out or to fancy. Oh, what a dull world!'

'Are we to find out or to fancy you?' asked Maia. She spoke seriously, but there was a little look of fun in her eyes which was at once reflected in godmother's.

'Whichever you like,' she replied; 'but, first of all, you are to kiss me.'

Rollo and Maia both kissed the soft white face. It was so soft, and there seemed a sort of fresh, sweet scent about godmother, as if she had been in a room all filled with violets, only it was even nicer. She smiled, and from a little basket on her arm, which they had not noticed, she drew out several tiny bunches of spring flowers, tied with green and white ribbon – so pretty; oh, so very pretty!

'So you scented my flowers,' she said. 'No wonder; you have never scented any quite like them before. They come from the other country. Here, dears, catch,' and she tossed them up in the air, all four children jumping and darting about to see who would get most. But at the end, when they counted their treasures, it was quite right, each had got three.

'Oh, how sweet!' cried Maia. 'May we take them home with us, godmother?' It seemed to come quite naturally to call her that, and Maia did it without thinking.

'Certainly,' godmother replied; 'but remember this, don't throw them away when they seem withered. They will not be really withered; that is to say, long afterwards, by putting them in the sunshine, they will – some of them, any way – come out quite fresh again. And even when dried up they will have a delicious scent; indeed, the scent has an added charm about it the older they are – so many think, and I agree with them.'

Rollo and Maia looked at their flowers with a sort of awe.

'Then they are fairy flowers?' they half whispered. 'You said they came from the other country. Do you come from there too, godmother? Are you a fairy?'

Godmother smiled.