The Eagle's Nest

by S. E. Cartwright

"Let me!" cried a strange voice.

The children started so violently that they almost fell out of the Eagle's Nest. They looked all round in bewilderment, and at last, directly under the beech-tree, on the other side of the wall, they saw a boy watching them intently.

"If you will drop the end of the ladder down this way I know I can climb up," he said. "I've been looking at you for a long time, only you were so busy you didn't notice me. And I want to get up and have a look at that place you have built in the tree."

Betty and John turned to Madge and remained silent. The occasion was so strange that they gladly yielded to their elder sister the privilege of deciding what was to be done. But for once even the masterful Madge had some difficulty in making up her mind. There were so many things to be considered before taking any decisive action.

Of course it would be delightful to exhibit all their inventions and contrivances to a stranger, a boy who was apparently of an exact age to take an intelligent interest in such matters. But then, on the other hand, they had never been given permission to speak to this boy, and perhaps it was not the right thing to do.

"Still, I don't remember that we have ever been forbidden to talk to strangers, have we?" said Madge aloud. She was very anxious to be provided with an excuse for inviting this new boy to join the party.

"No, I don't think we have ever actually been told not to speak to people we don't know," said Betty thoughtfully. "But then, you know, Mama and Miss Thompson would never think of our meeting a stranger in the fields, and of course we don't go on the roads by ourselves."

This was perfectly true, but it did not suit Madge at all.

"I don't know what people think," she said impatiently; "only what they say. And if we have never been forbidden to speak to a stranger, I expect there is no harm in it. We are forbidden things fast enough if they are wrong. Sometimes it seems as if there would be hardly anything left that we are allowed to do!" She spoke rather recklessly, having half made up her mind to do something that she knew perfectly well was not right, and hoping by talking very loud and fast to stifle the voice of her conscience.

"You are keeping me a precious long time waiting!" called out the boy from below. "You don't mean to say you are such a set of babies that you are afraid to let down the ladder for me without first running back to the nursery to ask permission?"