Christmas Tree Land Part 7

'Expecting us?' exclaimed Maia, who generally found her voice more quickly than Rollo; 'how can you have been expecting us?'

She had stepped forward a step or two before her brother, and now stood looking up in the girl's face with wonder in her bright blue eyes, while she tossed back the long fair curls that fell round her head. Boys are not very observant, but Rollo could not help noticing the pretty picture the two made. The peasant maiden with her dark plaits and brown complexion, dressed in a short red skirt, and little loose white bodice fastened round the waist with a leather belt, and Maia with a rather primly-cut frock and frilled tippet of flowered chintz, such as children then often wore, and large flapping shady hat.

'How can you have been expecting us?' Maia repeated.

Rollo came forward in great curiosity to hear the answer.

The girl smiled.

'Ah!' she said, 'there are more ways than one of knowing many things that are to come. Waldo heard you had arrived at the white castle, and my G.o.dmother had already told us of you. Then we found the milk gone, and----'

Rollo interrupted this time. 'We were so vexed,' he said, 'not to be able to explain about it. We have wanted to come every day since to----'

'To pay for it,' he was going to say, but something in the girl's face made him hesitate.

'Not to pay for it,' she said quickly, though smiling again, as if she read his words in his face; 'don't say that. We were so glad it was there for you. Besides, it is not ours--Waldo and I would have nothing but for our G.o.dmother. But come in--come in--Waldo is only gone to fetch some brushwood, and our G.o.dmother, too, will be here soon.'

Too surprised to ask questions--indeed, there seemed so many to ask that they would not have known where to begin--Rollo and Maia followed the girl into the little kitchen. It looked just as neat and dainty as the other day--and brighter too, for a charming little fire was burning in the grate, and a pleasant smell of freshly-roasted coffee was faintly perceived. The table was set out as before, but with the addition of a plate of crisp-looking little cakes or biscuits, and in place of _two_ small cups and saucers there were _four_, as well as the larger one the children had seen before. This was too much for Maia to behold in silence. She stopped short, and stared in still greater amazement.

'Why!' she exclaimed. 'You don't mean to say--why, just fancy, I don't even know your name.'

'Silva,' replied the girl quietly, but with an amused little smile on her face.

'Silva,' continued Maia, 'you _don't_ mean to say that you've put out those two cups for _us_--that you knew we'd come.'

'G.o.dmother did,' said Silva. 'She told us yesterday. So we've been very busy to get all our work done, and have a nice holiday afternoon. Waldo has nothing more to do after he's brought in the wood, and I baked those little cakes this morning and roasted the coffee. G.o.dmother told us to have it ready early, so that there'll be plenty of time before you have to go. Oh, here's Waldo!' she exclaimed joyfully.

Rollo and Maia turned round. There, in the doorway stood a boy, his cap in his hand, a pleasant smile on his bright ruddy face.

'Welcome, my friends,' he said, with a kind of gravity despite his smile.

He was such a nice-looking boy--just about as much bigger than Rollo as Silva was bigger than Maia. You could have told at once that they were brother and sister--there was the same bright and yet serious expression in their eyes; the same healthy, ruddy complexion; the same erect carriage and careless grace in Waldo in his forester's clothes as in Silva with her pretty though simple peasant maiden dress. They looked what they were, true children of the beautiful woods.

'Thank you,' said Rollo and Maia, after a moment's hesitation. They did not know what else to say. Silva glanced at them. She seemed to have a curious power of reading in their faces the thoughts that were pa.s.sing in their minds.

'Don't think it strange,' she said quickly, 'that Waldo calls you thus "my friends," and that we both speak to you as if we had known you for long. We know we are not the same as you--in the world, I mean, we could not be as we are here with you, but this is not the world,' and here she smiled again--the strange, bright, and yet somehow rather sad smile which made her face so sweet--'and so we need not think about it.

G.o.dmother said it was best only to remember that we are just four children together, and when you see her you will feel that what she says is always best.'

'We don't need to see her to feel that we like you to call us your friends,' exclaimed Rollo and Maia together. The words came from their hearts, and yet somehow they felt surprised at being able to say them so readily. Rollo held out his hand to Waldo, who shook it heartily, and little Maia going close up to Silva said softly, 'Kiss me, please, dear Silva.'

And thus the friendship was begun.

The first effect of this seemed to be the setting loose of Maia's tongue.

'There are so many things I want to ask you,' she began. 'May I? Do you and Waldo live here alone, and have you always lived here? And does your G.o.dmother live here, for the other day when we went all over the cottage we only saw two little beds, and two little of everything, except the big chair and the big cup and saucer. And what----'

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 G.o.dmother,' 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 G.o.dmother? 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 G.o.dmother 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 G.o.dmother 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 G.o.dmother 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, G.o.dmother, 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 G.o.dmother 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?'