“All right. I might have known you would have said that,” Maida declared, “when I’m just dying to show you the house.”
The tree grew out of the middle of the Annex. The floor had been fitted neatly about the tree-trunk. Stairs led up to the roof; and from the roof, a short flight of steps led to the Tree House. One after another the children mounted them. It took them into a little square room with windows looking in all four directions.
“Oh I can see Spy Pond—I mean the Magic Mirror!” Rosie exclaimed.
“And from here you can see the Big House,” Laura exclaimed. “Not very much—just a sort of shining....”
“Oh—But—Look—See!” Dicky stuttered in his excitement. “From here you can see the ocean!”
The children deserted the other windows and rushed to Dicky’s side. In the west appeared all a-sparkle what looked like a great heaving mass of melted glass. On and on it stretched, and on, until it cut through the vapory sky and disappeared forever. A few sail boats like great gulls were beating their wings on its glittering surface.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Rosie said in a solemn voice. “It makes me feel almost like not speaking.”
“Wait until you see it in a nor’easter,” Maida promised, “or a great thunder storm.”
“Just think,” Arthur said, “all my life I’ve wanted to learn to sail a boat—”