At dinner, where they took their places as usual at each side of their cousin, nothing was said till the close. Then Lady Venelda turned solemnly to the children:
'You have been attentive at your lessons, I am glad to hear,' she said; 'but you are doubtless still somewhat tired with your journey. My kind physician thinks some hours of fresh air would do you good. I therefore shall be pleased for you to spend all the afternoon in the woods—there will be no more lessons to-day.'
'Oh, thank you, thank you,' repeated the children, and Maia glanced at her cousin with some thought of throwing her arms round her and kissing her, but Lady Venelda looked so very stiff and stately that she felt her courage ebb.
'It is better only to kiss her when we are alone with her,' she said afterwards to Rollo, in which he agreed.
But they forgot everything except high spirits and delight when, half an hour later, they found themselves with Nanni on their way to the longed-for woods.
'Which way shall we go?' said Maia; and indeed it was a question for consideration. For it was not on one side only that there were woods, but on every side, far as the eye could reach, stretched out the wonderful forests. The white castle stood on raised ground, but in the centre of a circular valley, so that to reach the outside world one had first to descend and then rise again; so the entrance to the woods was sloping, for the castle hill was bare of trees, which began only at its base.
'Which way?' repeated Rollo; 'I don't see that it matters. We get into the woods every way.'
'Except over there,' said Maia, pointing to the road by which they had come, gleaming like a white ribbon among the trees, which had been thinned a little in that direction.
'Well, we don't want to go there,' said Rollo, but before he had time to say more Maia interrupted him.
'Oh, Rollo, let's go the way that we saw the little cottage. No, I don't mean that we saw the cottage, but we saw the smoke rising, and we were sure there was a cottage. It was—let me see——' and she tried to put herself in the right direction; 'yes, it was on my left hand—it must be on that side,' and she pointed where she meant.