"You have no fun in you. What do you want of your staff? Stay here in the woods, and you'll not need one. But you have not told me where you are going."
All the time he was speaking, the elf had his eyes on the knife; but Laura was guarded.
"I am going on an errand of charity, and I need my staff; please give it me. Look what a knife this is"—and she sprung the blade open again; then, assuming to be weary of waiting, she said, "Well, I must go without my staff, I suppose. I have lost too much time already. Good-morning, Mr. Elf. Your honey was very nice; I am much obliged. Good-morning;" and she turned as if to go.
"Hoity-toity! you are in haste. Well, if you must go, good-bye. Your staff is on your left-hand side, beneath the very trees before you. But how will I get the knife now?"
"Here," said Laura, only too glad to regain her precious staff; and giving the knife a toss on the grass, she ran for her stick. The elf shouted and danced again, and, shouldering the knife as if it had been a great bludgeon, he disappeared in the forest, the rabbit-skin dangling behind his back.
Laura was greatly relieved, and started on her tramp with the resolve that nothing should hinder or detain her again. All day she kept in the bed of the brook, as the Motherkin had told her to do, and as it grew afternoon and the rocks became precipitous it seemed to her that she could not go farther; but thoughts of the children inspired fresh courage. Her feet were aching, but as she reached the top of the high bank which bordered the stream, she espied a little thin curl of blue smoke rising probably from the very cottage of which she was in search. Pushing on through brambles and bushes, led by the gentle guidance of her valuable staff, she at last came to the cottage door, and, with her heart beating rapidly from excitement and fatigue, gently knocked for admittance.
CHAPTER VIII.
No answer coming to her knock, Laura pushed the door open, and saw just the same poor little room Grim had described. There were fagots burning on the hearth; but though it was so poor and bare, it had an air of neatness and order as if unused. Even the forlorn little bed of straw looked as if no one had slept on it. Laura was so disappointed that she knew not what to do; but, too tired to make any search, she was about turning away when a light footfall arrested her, and she saw the figure of a weeping child coming towards the hut. Evidently this was the elder of the two children, for she had the same brown hair Grim had spoken of, but she was so much overcome by sorrow that she did not see Laura until she came quite to the door, and then she started as if with painful surprise.
"Do not be alarmed," said Laura. "I have been walking a long way, and am very tired: can you let me rest here for the night?"