Olive had pricked up her ears. “A little place in the forest!” she said to herself; “that may be near where the dwarfs live: it is most likely not far from here, because of the one we saw.” She would have liked to ask her uncle about it, but something in the look of her aunt’s eyes kept her from doing so.
“Perhaps she was joking,” thought Olive to herself. “But perhaps she doesn’t know; she didn’t see the real dwarf. It would be rather nice if I did find them, then Auntie couldn’t laugh at me any more.”
They were soon comfortably settled in the carriage, and set off. The first part of the drive was not particularly interesting; and it was so hot, though already afternoon, that they were all—Olive especially, you may be sure—delighted to exchange the open country for the pleasant shade of a grand pine forest, through which their road now lay.
“Is it a very large forest, Uncle?” said Olive.
“Yes, very large,” he replied rather sleepily, to tell the truth: for both he and Auntie had been nodding a little, and Rex had once or twice been fairly asleep. But Olive’s imagination was far too hard at work to let her sleep.
“The largest in Europe?” she went on, without giving much thought to poor Uncle’s sleepiness.
“Oh yes, by far,” he replied, for he had not heard clearly what she said, and fancied it was “the largest hereabouts.”
“Dear me!” thought Olive, looking round her with awe and satisfaction. “If there are dwarfs anywhere, then it must be here.”
And she was just beginning another. “And please, Uncle, is——?” when her aunt looked up and said lazily—
“Oh, my dear child, do be quiet! Can’t you go to sleep yourself a little! We shall have more than enough of the forest before we are out of it?” Which offended Olive so much that she relapsed into silence.