At the thought of this delightful sight Maggie's cheeks became very pink, her blue eyes danced, and she forgot that her legs were without muscle, and even tried to run in her excitement and pleasure.
"Don't be silly, Mag!" laughed her cousin; "the bunnies aren't going to hide themselves, and we'll find them all in good time. You may walk with those tottery legs of yours, but you certainly cannot run. Here, now we're at the entrance to the wood; now I'll help you over the stile."
The children found the nest of lovely white rabbits, and spent a very happy half-hour sitting on the ground gazing at them.
Then Maggie began to confide a little care, which rested on her heart about Jo, to her cousin.
"She has got well again, you know, Ralph, and I promised she should meet me in the country somewhere where the grass is green, and yet I don't know how she's to come. I have got no money, and Jo has got no money, and father and mother don't say any thing about it. It would be a dreadful thing for Jo to stay away from heaven—for she was very, very near going to heaven, Ralph—and then to find that I had broken my word to her, and that after all we were never to see each other where the grass is green."
"It would be worse than dreadful," answered Ralph, "it would be downright cruel and wicked. Dear little Jo! she'd like to come here and look at the bunnies, wouldn't she? Well, I've got no money either, and she can't be got into the country without money; that I do know. Perhaps I'd better speak to mother about it."
But Ralph, when he did question Mrs. Grenville on the subject, found her wonderfully silent, and in his opinion unsympathetic. She said that she could not possibly interfere with Sir John and Lady Ascot in their own place, and that if she were Ralph she would let things alone, and trust to the Ascots doing what was right in the matter.
But Ralph was not inclined to take this advice.
"I like Maggie for being good about Jo," he said, "and Jo shan't be disappointed. I'll go myself to Uncle John; he probably only needs to have the thing put plainly to him."
Sir John listened to the little boy's somewhat excited remarks with an amused twinkle in his eyes.