Montgomery ignored her unflattering remarks, and, lifting the casket, exclaimed:
"H-h-h-heavy! H-h-heavier 'n lead. What you s-s-s-suppose is in it? Where'd you find it? W-w-w-when?"
Since secrecy was no longer possible, Kate was only too glad to tell everything, and now all desire for teasing had left the listener. He was even ashamed that he had forced the girl from the rock, though glad of the result, and in another instant both tongues were busy with speculation concerning the astonishing find.
"It's so queer. It has no opening that I can see, for this broad band around the middle looks perfectly smooth, as if it were all in one piece. The band won't slip down nor up. The corners, the brass tips, don't budge. It's a perfect cube—let's measure. Yes. Just as big one way as another. The wood is as fine as satin and looks as if it had been polished to the last degree. Do you suppose it is brass or gold that trims it? And where, where did it come from? The earth on it was so fresh I don't believe that it had been buried but a little while, and oh, I'm just wild to know all about it. Come on. Let's go home. You may carry it part of the time. But don't drop it. Don't, for your life!" chattered the girl, placing the box in Monty's outstretched palms and anxiously regarding his manner of holding it.
His face was a study. Boys, in general, are supposed to be intensely practical and less gifted with imagination than girls, but this is a mistake. Youth is the time for air-castle building, and whether it be lad or lass who "dreams" there is but little difference. Poor Monty! Unable to put his soaring thoughts into speech as his companion so readily could, he had to be content with just thinking them. But as he turned his beautiful eyes upon her she understood all that he would have said and clapped her hands, crying ecstatically:
"Oh, I'm so glad! You're one can make-believe everything lovely, too! I see it. What fun we'll have! Let's begin at once. We're in the enchanted forest. We've been enchanted ourselves. But the fairy king has come and shown us where to find the magic treasure that will unlock the whole world for us and make us back into the real prince and princess that we are all the time, though other people don't know it. He has given us the magic box with the key in it, only he has forgotten to tell us how to open it. We are on our way now to the Wise Woman. The Wise Woman lives in the stone castle beyond the forest, and she will show us how to open the box and to use the key. Because the box was hers once, before she gave it to the fairy king to keep for us. She knew that one day we should come into the forest and that all would happen that has happened. That's what makes her the Wise Woman. She has lived a long, long time. So long that her hair is quite gray and there are wrinkles around her eyes. But the eyes are still clear and gentle and there is a pretty pink color in her cheeks. She wears a soft gray gown with an old-fashioned kerchief crossed over her breast, and sometimes, most always, there is a flower thrust into the lace kerchief. Her hands are white and slender and blue veined, but they look old, and her voice is sweet and gentle like her eyes. Yet sometimes—sometimes, when other people who are not at all wise but very troublesome come before the Wise One and displease her, a little sharp fire gets into the eyes and a sour little tang into the voice, and then the Troublesome One wishes she hadn't come!"
They had been walking swiftly toward the village, for to Montgomery every step of the way was so familiar that he need not look for landmarks, and his eyes had remained fixed in fascination upon the girl's radiant face as she spun this fairy-tale without stop or hesitation. It had been as real to him as to her, but now there came over him a disappointment even more real. Pausing abruptly on the path, he burst forth, indignantly:
"Oh, f-f-f-fudge! That Wise Woman's nobody but Aunt Eu-Eu-Eu-nice!"
At the same moment something heavy crashed through the underbrush, and a man fell sprawling at their feet.