The springing fountain lowered slowly, slowly, the mist melted and the waterfall played as before over its sturdy rock.
The children looked at one another. "That was good," said Pierre. "It saves a great deal of time. We can go faster without our caps, since Rose-Petal forgot to give us wings to go with them, and next we must go to the forest."
They took off the caps and hurried fast as their feet would carry them back into the woods.
"Now, slow and sure," said Pierre, and they fitted on their caps again. They saw at once what Rose-Petal had meant by what she said of their being better able to understand, for to their great surprise a bird, who had begun to twitter as they stepped in among the trees, was speaking.
"There are those two children again," she chirped. "They crash through the bushes here so many times a day it is very strange they never seem to remember that trees were made for us and not for them. I'm always expecting them to look up and see my nest, and some children are robbers, you know."
"We are not," cried Iona, but the bird flew away, paying no attention to her and singing as she went, "Robbers, robbers," to warn the other birds.
"I can't bear to have them think that," said Iona with tears in her eyes.
"No matter now," said Pierre, "we must look steadily at the ground as we walk to see if we can find that key."
A bird up among the highest branches had heard Iona's words of grief that she should be thought a robber and he felt sorry for her.
"Ask the Wise Man," he sang.