"Though I take the wings of the morning—" said the man. Then he laid the curl back in the box, and went out and shut the door softly behind him.
[CHAPTER IV.]
ASKING QUESTIONS.
"How many birds have you got, dwarf?" asked the child.
They were sitting at breakfast the next morning. To look at the child, no one would have thought she had ever been sleepy in her life; she was twinkling all over with eagerness and curiosity.
"How many?" repeated the man, absently. He hardly seemed to hear what the child said; he looked searchingly at her, and seemed to be trying to make out something that was puzzling him.
"Yes, how many?" repeated the child, with some asperity. "Seems to me you are rather stupid this morning, dwarf; but perhaps you are like bats, and sleep in the daytime. Are you like bats? Are dwarfs like bats? Can you hang up by your heels in trees? Have you got claws on them?"
Her eyes dilated with awful joy; but the man shook his head and laughed. "No, no, Snow-white. I wasn't sleepy at all; I was only thinking."
"Did you sleep last night?" asked the child, slightly disappointed. "I was in your bed, so you couldn't sleep. If you did sleep, where did you? Please give me some more bread. I don't see where you get bread; and I don't see where you slept; and you didn't tell me how many birds you had. I shall be angry pretty soon, I don't wonder."
"Snow-white," said the dwarf, "if you talk so fast, your tongue will be worn out before you are seventy."