They stopped a little to give Nanni time to come up to them, and Rollo offered to help her to carry the basket. It was not heavy, she replied, she could carry it quite well alone, but she still looked rather depressed in spirits, so the children walked beside her, talking merrily of the dinner in the woods they were going to have, so that by degrees Nanni forgot her fears of the mysterious cottage, and thought no more about it.
It was even a more beautiful day than the one, now nearly a week ago, on which they had first visited the woods. There was more sunshine to-day, and the season was every day farther advancing; the lovely little new green tips were beginning to peep out among the darker green which had already stood the wear and tear of a bitter winter and many a frosty blast.
'How pretty the fir-trees look!' said Maia. 'They don't seem the least dim or gloomy in the sunshine, even though it only gets to them in little bits. See there, Rollo,' she exclaimed, pointing to one which got more than its share of the capricious gilding. 'Doesn't it look like a real Christmas-tree?'
'Like a lighted-up one, you mean,' said Rollo. 'It would be a very nice Christmas-tree for a family of giants, and if I could climb up so high, I'd be just about the right size for the angel at the top. Let's spread our table at the foot of this tree—it looks so nice and dry. I'm sure, Nanni,' he went on, 'you'll be glad to get rid of your basket.'
'It's not heavy, Master Rollo,' said Nanni; 'but, all the same, it is queer how the minute I get into these woods I begin to be so sleepy—you'd hardly believe it.'
Rollo and Maia looked at each other with a smile, but they said nothing.
'We'd better have our dinner any way,' observed Rollo, kneeling down to unfasten the basket, of which the contents proved very good indeed.
'What fun it is, isn't it?' said Maia, when they had eaten nearly as much cold chicken and bread, and cakes and fruit as they wanted. 'What fun it is to be able to do just as we like, and say just what we like, instead of having to sit straight up in our chairs like two dolls, and only speak when we're spoken to, and all that—how nice it would be if we could have our dinner in the woods every day!'
'We'd get tired of it after a while, I expect,' said Rollo. 'It wouldn't be nice in cold weather, or if it rained.'
'I wouldn't mind,' said Maia. 'I'd build a warm little hut and cover it over with moss. We'd live like the squirrels.'