“It was the same sound—the very same—I heard before in the garden—at—home.” Una shivered a little, caught in a rose-lined pocket of darkness—as the night became more overcast.
“But now, pshaw! it’s so easily explained.” Pemrose shrugged her shoulders impatiently, poking at the fire, too. “The Guardian was right—just some crack-brained musician, off on a holiday, seized with a fancy for sorting sounds out-of-doors,” laughingly, “testing old Nature with a tuning fork—or a variety of them—to see what key she sang in—what pitch she liked best. If father and I hadn’t done it before—”
“But early—early morning.” Una’s whisper was still restless.
“Trying to get the exact key of a bird’s song—waking song!”
“Seems to me the bird didn’t get much of a chance!” The dark-eyed girl’s whisper was whimsical now; that slight, near-sighted peculiarity in her right eye, which the girls pronounced “fetching”, was fixed half fearfully, as she stared into the fire, but she was trying—Una—to get the better of what Pem called her little “crinkams”, her cousin Treff her cowardly curves.
“Well—well, we haven’t heard it again,” said Madeline.
“I—I thought I did—one night, near camp—one starry night—”
Perhaps only the fire caught Una’s broken whisper, now, for the wind suddenly shrieked into its ear, so that the flames leaped up again noisily.
“Goodness! I hope we’re not going to have a storm,” said the Guardian. “That would be too bad after all the fun.”
“Huh! The thunder-plump comes on so quickly here,” hooted Madeline. “Seems as if the mountains just heaved a long, sullen breath—and comes the storm!”