“If they’re good kind of fairies,” said Rafe sagely—“and I think they’re sure to be—they wouldn’t have liked us to be disobedient; and you know mamma’s awfully particular about our coming in the moment we hear the bell ring.”
“Yes,” said Alix; “that’s true.”
Mamma’s heart was extra soft that evening, I think. She had seen so little of the children lately that she was feeling rather sorry for them, and all the more ready to agree to any wish of theirs. So they had no difficulty in getting her consent to their picnic plan for to-morrow. And the weather was wonderfully settled, as it sometimes is even in England, though early in the year.
So the next morning saw them set off, carrying a little basket of provisions and a large parasol, full of eagerness and excitement as to what might be before them.
They did not cross the lawn as they had done the day before, for they had a sort of feeling that they did not wish anyone to see them start, or to know exactly which way they went. It added to the pleasant mystery of the expedition. So they went straight out by the front gates, and after following the high road for a quarter of a mile or so, entered a little wood which skirted the grass-grown lane along one side, and from which they made their way out with some scrambling and clambering at only a few yards’ distance from the entrance to the deserted garden where they had last seen the wren.
The sight of the gate-posts reminded Alix of the bird, and she stopped short with some misgiving.
“Rafe,” she said, “do you think perhaps we should have waited for her at the ilex tree? I never thought of it before.”
“Oh no,” said Rafe; “I’m sure it’s all right. We’ve come to the place she led us to. She didn’t need to show us the way twice! Fairies don’t like stupid people.”
“You seem to know a great lot about fairies,” said Alix, who had no idea of being snubbed herself, though she was fond of snubbing other people; “so I think you’d better settle what we’re to do.”
“I expect we’ll find the wren inside the gate,” said Rafe; and they made their way on in silence.