Morgan, however, seemed to understand pretty clearly, to judge from the way he laughed and asked if Mr. Pat was well.
Rosalind nodded and wrote, "He has gone to Japan."
"So far? Coming home soon?"
With a mournful countenance she shook her head.
Morgan stood looking down on her with a smile that no longer seemed uncanny. Indeed, there was something almost sweet in the rugged face as he repeated, "Mr. Pat's little girl, well, well," as if it were quite incredible.
Rosalind longed to ask at least a dozen questions, but it is dampening to one's ardor to have to spell every word, and she only nodded and smiled in her turn as she handed back the tablet.
"I wish father had taught me to talk on my fingers," she thought, feeling that one branch of her education had been neglected. "Perhaps Uncle Allan will, when he comes."
She watched the odd figure till it disappeared around a turn in the trim garden path, then she picked up the big red pillow which had fallen on the grass, and replacing it in one corner of the bench, curled herself up against it. The hymn book lay forgotten.
"I believe things are really beginning to happen," she said to herself. "You need not pretend they are not, for they are," she added, shaking her finger at the griffins with their provoking lack of expression. "You wouldn't make friends with anybody, not to save their lives, and it seemed as if I were never to get acquainted with a soul, when here I have met the magician in the most surprising way. And to think I didn't know him!"
The dream spirit was abroad in the garden. Across the lawn the shadows made mysterious progress; the sunlight seemed sifted through an enchanted veil, and like the touch of fairy fingers was the summer breeze against Rosalind's cheek, as with her head against the red pillow, she travelled for the first time in her life back into the past.