"Let's walk up and down," suggested Mother. "Anything's better than sitting still. And don't talk, chick not just now."
They paced the length of the lawn, from the cedar to the gate which led to the wood, perhaps a dozen times, hand in hand and in silence. It was while their backs were turned to the wood that they heard the gate click, and faced about to see who was coming. A blue-sleeved arm thrust the gate open, and there advanced into the sunlight, coming forth from the shadow as from a doorway Joan! Her round baby face, with the sleek brown hair over it, the massive infantile body, the sturdy bare legs, confronted them serenely. Mother uttered a deep sigh it sounded like that and in a moment she was kneeling on the ground with her arms round the baby.
"Joan, Joan," she said over and over again. "My little, little baby!"
Joan struggled in her embrace till she got an arm free, and then rubbed her eyes drowsily.
"Hallo!" she said.
"But where have you been?" cried Mother. "Baby-girl, where have you been all this time?"
Joan made a motion of her head and her free arm towards the wood, the wood which had been searched a dozen times over like a pocket. "In there," she answered carelessly. "Wiv the wood-ladies. I'm hungry!"
"My darling!" said Mother, and picked her up and carried her into the house.
In the dining-room, with Mother at her side and Joyce opposite to her, Joan fell to her food in her customary workmanlike fashion, and between helpings answered questions in a fashion which only served to darken the mystery of her absence.
"But there aren't any wood-ladies really, darling," remonstrated
Mother.