"Yes, when I was in the garden with father yesterday. I could not think what it was at first. I thought it must be one boy calling to another," Angel confessed, colouring slightly.
"Oh, you silly thing!" cried Tom, looking over his shoulder at the little girls who were seated on the ground a few yards behind Gerald and himself. "What an ignoramus you must be!"
Gerald joined in the laugh against his sister, though he was conscious that he might have made the same mistake himself, knowing as little as she did of the sights and sounds familiar to country folks.
"I know it was silly of me," Angel acknowledged, good-temperedly smiling, for she was beginning to understand that Tom Mickle never meant his out-spoken remarks in an unkindly spirit; "father and Uncle Edward both laughed at me, and no wonder."
"But if you had never heard the cuckoo before you could not be expected to know what it was," said Dinah in her matter-of-fact way. "Everything in the country must seem strange to you, and to Gerald too."
"Oh, Angel," broke in Dora, "there's a robin's nest with three young ones in it in our back garden! I had nearly forgotten to tell you. Gilbert found it yesterday; it is in a hole in the hedge close to the river—such a snug little home, made of moss and lined with horse hairs. You shall see it for yourself."
"Where did the robin get the horse hairs?" inquired Angel wonderingly.
"Picked them up, of course," Tom replied, with a laugh.
"Are you going to take the young ones?" Gerald asked.
"Take the young ones!" Dora echoed in horrified tones, whilst her sister turned a pair of reproachful eyes upon Gerald. "I should think not indeed. We wouldn't do anything so cruel. I don't know what Gilbert would do to any one who touched the nest, or the young ones either!"