The sprite laughed, tossed back its head, frisked about, keeping time to the bluebird’s song. Kitty thought it was the prettiest sight.
“Watch the star! The bird is a temptation—it is idle pleasure. See, it plays with your naughty sprite. It sings to lead you astray,” whispered the guardian child, and its pink wings fluttered in a tremor of anxiety.
Still Kitty lingered.
“Come on, for Johnnie’s sake—to win a Christmas blessing for Johnnie!” urged the guardian child.
Kitty turned quickly in the direction to which the guardian child pointed. The star was gliding no longer over the pleasant wood; its course lay over a path that was very steep, bordered by no flowers, shaded by no overhanging trees. She ran some steps, and her guardian child pressed its rosy wings against her ears to muffle the song of the bird.
But louder and louder it sang, and that piercing melody seemed to coil itself like a string round Kitty’s heart, pulling her back. She stopped running. The bird seemed to sing of frolics, and Kitty felt as if games of four-corners, blind-man’s-buff, hide-and-go-seek were all hustling and bustling about in her head, and tingling in her feet. She turned to look.
“Don’t!” murmured her guardian child.
But Kitty looked. The naughty sprite and the bluebird were having a merry game. The bird flew as it sang and the sprite gamboled after it; it hid in the bushes and the sprite went frisking and seeking for it; then up the bluebird would fly and wheel round and round, singing as if a thousand musical glasses were tinkling in its throat. The sprite had the drollest air; jerking his head on one side and beckoning to Kitty.
“Oh! let me join in the game!” cried Kitty, and back she ran toward the bird and the sprite.