“My goodness! I wouldn’t mind being an oyster right now.”
“Mercy! What for?”
“’Cause I could close my shell tight and nothing could get at me. Oh, Doro! what is that?”
A belated bird flew overhead and its cry had startled Tavia. Dorothy laughed at her again.
“Let’s be brave, Tavia.”
“What for? There’s nobody to see us. It’s other folks looking on that makes people brave. I know you so well, Doro, that I don’t care if you do know I’m afraid.”
The sky arched them like a dome of dark blue velvet on which silver spangles had been sewn. The woods were filled with deep shadows.
A breathless silence seemed to have fallen over the hillside. The girls, huddled together on their rude couch, could distinguish the faint tinkle of the little rill at which they had quenched their thirst.
“But our appetites!” groaned Tavia. “There’s nothing to quench them. Oh, Doro! you are so nice and plump. I’d like to bite you.”
“You are the most savage animal in all this forest, I do believe, Tavia,” laughed Dorothy.