Joyce, squatting in her place, blinked a little breathlessly to shift from her senses an oppression of alarm, and settled down to wait for her. At least it was true that nothing ever happened to Joan; even when she fell into a water-butt she suffered no damage; and the wood was a place to which they came every day.
"Besides," she considered, enumerating her resources of comfort; "besides, there can't be such things as wood-ladies, really."
But Joan was a long time gone. The dome of pines took on an uncanny stillness; the moving patches of sun seemed furtive and unnatural; the ferns swayed without noise. In the midst of it, patient and nervous, sat Joyce, watching always that spot in the bushes where a blue overall and a brown head had disappeared. The under-note of alarm which stirred her senses died down; a child finds it hard to spin out a mood; she simply sat, half-dreaming in the peace of the morning, half-watching the wood. Time slipped by her, and presently there came Mother, smiling and seeking through the trees for her babies.
"Isn't there a clock inside you that tells you when it's lunch time?" asked Mother. "You're ever so late. Where's Joan?"
Joyce rose among the ferns, delicate and elfin, with a shy perplexity on her face. It was difficult to speak even to Mother about wood-ladies without a pretence of skepticism.
"I forgot about lunch," she said, taking the slim, cool hand which
Mother held out to her. "Joan's in there." She nodded at the bushes.
"Is she?" said Mother, and called aloud in her singing voice that was so clear to hear in the spaces of the wood. "Joan! Joan!"
A cheeky bird answered with a whistle, and Mother called again.
"She said," explained Joyce; "she said she saw a wood-lady, and then she went in there to show me she wasn't afraid."
"What's a wood-lady, chick?" asked Mother. "The rascal!" she said, smiling, when Joyce had explained as best she could. "We'll have to go and look for her."