The Princess’s voice died away in a hush that lasted a long moment, as if some one really were sleeping.
Then Pat drew a deep breath: “Well! I should say! For pitysakes! I hope she’s done mischief enough for once!”
“She didn’t mean it for mischief. She had to make the mountain clean, didn’t she, Dearie? She couldn’t help it if they were in the way,” said Miss Phyllisy, with the wise little mind the Princess loved in her, clear and fair and earnest.
“But she wouldn’t be sorry,” Pat insisted.
“No; she went straight off to sleep,” Phyllisy admitted. “And that poor little baby!—We’re ready to go on, Dearie, whenever you’re rested.”
And after a few minutes the Princess was ready also.
“There isn’t much that goes on on Mother Earth that the Star People don’t know about,” she began, whisking them away to Starland without any warning. “On clear nights, when they are standing still to be looked at, they watch—and watch. And Old Sol keeps watch by day. So there is not much that escapes them: certainly not Xyntli and her naps, and particularly her wakings!
“She was a tantalizing person in this way: though they might look at her naps—that were nothing to see but a place!—as much and as long as they liked, no sooner was she fairly awake than the clouds would gather thick, and the Star People had to seize every chance to look through chinks. Any one who had a good sight had to tell it over to the others, again and again. But they did have glimpses, and Sol too; and after it was all over they could see what had been done. So they had a pretty clear idea of her and her actions.”
Pat nodded her head, as if she had, too; but she didn’t speak.
“When Xyntli vanished in her mountain the sky was full of heavy clouds; so when night came the Star People stationed themselves wherever there seemed the chance for a tiny gap, through which they might look.