Felicia limped to the window across the moth-eaten carpet with its faded doves and roses. She flung the casement out and listened eagerly.
"Piqueur," she cried entreatingly "tell me just what it says—that song you sing." But it was Margot who leaned on her hoe and looked up at the girl and laughed.
"He sings of a girl—of more than one girl—who takes care of sheep— the song tells them to hurry up—that time drips through the fingers like water—" Margot's own throaty voice joined lustily into her uncle's refrain, but a second later she was translating once more. "You must find your fun in the spring forests—when you're young—"
The girl in the window above them clapped her hands. A slender black- haired, eager-eyed dryad, whose shabby brocaded dressing gown trailed around her bandaged foot—
"Oh, wait! wait!" she cried, "Wait until I can do it—" her lips pursed themselves delicately and a second later the lilting trill of her lovely whistle took up the refrain of Maitre Guedron's song.
She stretched out her young hands toward the woods. The tardy tree tops were budding at last, their lovely bronze and red and tender green shining in the morning light.
"'In the spring forests,'" she cried, "'you must find your fun'—are those the words of the song, Margot?—Oh, look, look!" she pointed joyously to a blackbird on top the swaying maple outside her window. He whistled—she whistled, saucily back.
"Oh!" sighed Margot. "It is good to be young. It is good—go back to your bed, little one, I'll bring your breakfast."
But Felicia couldn't go back to bed. She hobbled delightedly from window to window, staring out at the open space in front of the house, with its descending terraces and the gray jungle of underbrush that hid the edge of the clearing. She turned eagerly when Margot entered with a tray. She was bubbling with joy.
"Is Maman comfortable this morning?" she was chattering. "Will she be in the garden? Where is the garden? I've looked and I can't see it—or is she in her bed yet? And is it up-stairs?"