"It is queer," she agreed. "It almost sounds like a message from mother's uncanny godmother."
"Don't call her 'uncanny,'" Linde objected. "It's rather a frightening sort of word, and she mightn't like it. Supposing," she went on, lowering her voice, "supposing she really was a fairy, or partly one, she may be back in fairyland for all we know, and some day we might see her."
But Aria shook her head.
"No," she said, "she very likely had dealings with the fairies, but that isn't the same as being one herself."
"I'll keep a good look-out for her, nevertheless, at the market to-day," Linde replied.
And so she did. But no one at all resembling the quaint figure in her dream was to be seen, and after a while Linde forgot about her, so busy were the sisters that morning in selling their wares.
The first of their usual customers, a kindly, well-to-do, housewifely woman, who had known their father and always came to them for flowers, was at once attracted by the delicious perfume of the dried leaves.
"Dear, dear," she exclaimed, "it's not often that late autumn flowers are so fragrant. Your posies are always fresh and sweet, but I've never known their scent so beautiful," and she sniffed with satisfaction, looking about to discover from which of the flowers it came.
"It's not the flowers," explained Aria to the good dame. "It's something new we have for sale to-day. I only hope that you and our other customers may take a fancy to it," and she went on to tell of the pleasant qualities of the dried rose-leaves—how their scent, if they were laid among linen, was both fresher and more delicate to begin with, and lasted much longer than that of the finest lavender. But she said nothing of the sort of mystery connected with the powder; some instinct prevented her doing so. Nor did she tell that but a little of it remained, or that their stock of rose-leaves would soon be exhausted.
"Who knows what may happen before that?" she reflected, and the words of Linde's dream-visitor recurred to her, "Three times, and then ask the robin."