"Oh, ain't I happy to think as my beautiful darling white Bianco and Lily has got safe away into a real country wood! Oh, missie, are there real trees there, and grass? and I hopes, oh, I hopes there's a little stream."
"Yes, there is," said Maggie, "a sweet little stream, and it tinkles away all day and all night, and of course there are trees, and there's grass. It's just like any other country wood."
"I'm so glad," said Jo; "I can picter it. In course I has never seen it, but I can picter it. Trees, grass, and the little stream a-tinkling, and the white bunnies ever and ever so happy. Yes, missie, thank you, missie; it's real beautiful, and when I shuts my eyes I can see it all."
Jo had said nothing about forgiving Maggie; on the contrary, she seemed to think her careless deed something rather heroic, Ralph raised his dark brows, fidgeted a little, and began to look at his cousin with a new respect. At this moment Mrs. Grenville's footman came up to say that the carriage was waiting for the children; so Maggie's first visit to Jo was over.
CHAPTER VII.
IN VIOLET.
Maggie and Ralph spent a very happy afternoon at the Zoo. The best of Ralph always came to the surface when he was with his mother, and he was also impressed by Jo's remarks about her rabbits. Was it really true that Maggie had done a beautiful deed by giving his white and pretty darlings their liberty in a country wood? How Jo's eyes shone when she spoke, and how ecstatically she looked at the little princess! Ralph was a great deal too much of a boy, and a great deal too proud to make any set speech of forgiveness to Maggie, but he determined on the spot to restore her to his favor. He ceased to be condescending, and greeted her more as a little hail-fellow-well-met. Maggie rejoiced in the change. Mrs. Grenville was her brightest and most agreeable self; the lions on near acquaintance proved more fascinating than dreadful, and on their way home Maggie pronounced in favor of the Zoo, said she would certainly like to go there again, and thought that on the whole it must be a nicer place than Madame Tussaud's, where, according to Ralph's account, unless you visited the chamber of horrors there were only large and overgrown dolls to be seen.
"I wonder," said Maggie to her cousin as they sat in the most amiable manner side by side at their tea that evening, "I wonder why Susy cares to go out into the streets and sing and play a funny little tambourine. She can't be at all shy to sing before a lot of people; can she, Ralph?"