“Can you see it go floating along?”
“Yes: it floats along by green banks where willow-trees are growing.”
“Please don’t open your eyes yet. Can’t you see some little guess-children coming to pick it out?”
“Perhaps I can. Now it gets tangled in the roots of a tree; now on it goes again; now it stops behind a rock. Yes, there are some little guess-girls, little frolicking guess-girls, coming to the bank of the stream.”
“Do they see it?”
“Yes; but they can’t reach. Take care, you little thing with a blue dress ruffled round the bottom! you are bending too far over. Ha, ha, ha!”
“What are you laughing at, mother?”
“Why, there’s a little bareheaded one tugging a long bean-pole. She’ll never do any thing with that. Now they throw stones. One hits; another hits. There goes the kite; and there goes the bean-pole; and there—dear, dear!—no; but she did almost tumble in. On, on floats the kite,—on to the sea.
“There’s a little boat coming, rowed by two children. They steer for that odd thing which floats upon the water. ‘What is it?’ they ask. An oar is reached out, and a kite-frame picked up,—nothing but a frame: the paper is soaked away.”
“And what has become of Ernest, mother? Is he lying down there now, smelling the blossoms, and hearing the brook go?”