"Yes," Aria agreed, "it is much the best to hope on and keep up our spirits. And for the present we have no reason to despond. My old purse is delightfully well filled to-day even though I could not make up my mind to raise the price of the leaves as Dame Barbara urged me to do. I felt somehow as if it would not bring me good luck."
"I felt the same," said Linde.
They spent a cheerful evening, and the following day, Sunday, passed peacefully. When they returned from the ancient church in the neighbouring village whither since their infancy they had always gone with their parents, Linde asked Aria to let her go for a stroll in the forest by herself, to which the elder sister, who was feeling a little tired, agreed.
"You are going to look for a robin, I know," she said with a smile, "and possibly as the dreams have come to you and not to me, you may succeed where I could not. But don't go too far, dear child. I should be anxious if you were long away, for no doubt the forest is rather uncanny, somehow."
"I won't go far," said Linde. "And I hardly hope to find out anything. But I shall just look well about me. You see the real time has not yet come. We are not to 'ask the robin' till after three market-days."
When she returned home an hour or two later, she seemed thoughtful, though not exactly depressed.
"Well," asked her sister, "had you any adventures?"
Linde shook her head, yet she smiled a little.
"Only a very tiny thing happened to me," she said, "hardly worth noticing. I strolled some way along the path that leads straight to the heart of the forest—the main path, you know, Aria—and I was just thinking of turning home, when, a short way down a much smaller path, scarcely one at all, I caught sight of something bright lying on the ground. At first I thought it was a scarlet berry or two, or some of the red leaves one often sees, but when I stooped to pick it up, it was this," and she held out a small feather.
Aria took it—it was of a peculiar shade, almost more orange than red.