"O.K.," said Foster gladly, and all three went pelting down the stairs, where children had never pelted until now.
It was very early when Portia woke up the next morning; the birds woke her. Every bird on earth was singing, it seemed. She had never heard such a jingling and jangling in her life.
Getting up, she went to the window to look out at the flowering, loudly singing world, and decided to go for a walk in her pajamas.
Everyone else was still asleep, so she tiptoed down the stairs, past the suit of armor on the landing that looked just as if it had a real knight inside it, and past the bronze lady who stood poised on the newel post. The bronze lady was called Miss McCurdy because she bore a striking resemblance to a live lady of this name who was a cashier at the Blue Premium Grocery Store in Pork Ferry.
Gulliver came yawning and stretching from the kitchen.
"We're going for a walk," Portia told him.
When she had unbolted and opened the big front door, Gulliver bounded out and went racing around the lawn in a dance of circles, but Portia walked slowly down the broad new steps, sniffing the air. M-m-m, lilies of the valley. She let her nose lead her to where they grew, spread in a vast green carpet under the apple trees. I was sure they'd all be gone by now, she thought. Of course then she had to stop and pick a big wet bunch of them, admiring their crispness and freshness: each little staff of bells trimmed with two broad leaves, like rabbits' ears.
The air rang with the energetic, joyful clamor of the birds. Only one, whose song came sweetly through the others, sounded meditative and solitary: three minor notes ascending. She wondered what it was.
A lively clanking caused her to turn her head: there came Julian along the drive, his camera, his field glasses, his collecting case, his lunch box, and a small canteen all draped about his person. No wonder he clanked more than usual.