"Where is we going?" said Nelly, as she stepped along by Joe's side, her eyes sparkling with delight.
"Into the woods somewhere on t' other side o' the water," said Joe, looking fondly down into the child's beaming eyes.
Benny had nearly stood on his head again when he heard that; but thought better of it, and contented himself with a shrill whistle expressive of delight.
"Better an' better," he thought, flinging his cap into the air and catching it on his toe; "won't I enjoy myself, just, that's all?"
By ten o'clock they were on the landing-stage, and soon after they were gliding up the river towards Eastham. Oh, how the wavelets sparkled in the summer's sunshine, and how the paddle-wheels tossed the water into foam! How happy everything seemed to-day! The ferries were crowded with passengers, all of whom seemed in the best of spirits; and the rush of water and the beat of the engine seemed to Nelly the happiest sounds she had ever heard.
Benny was rushing here and there and everywhere, and asking Joe questions about everything. But Nelly sat still. Her thoughts were too big for utterance, and her little heart was full to overflowing.
At length they reach New Ferry, where several passengers get off and several others get on; then on they glide again. The river here seems like a sheet of glass, so broad and smooth. Now they are nearing the river's bank, and Nelly is delighted to watch the trees gliding past. How wonderful everything seems! Surely her dreams are becoming a reality at last.
For awhile after they land they sit on the river's bank in the shade of the trees, and Nelly rubs her eyes and pinches herself, to be certain that she is not asleep. How grandly the mile-wide river at their feet flows downward to the sea! And what a beautiful background to the picture the wooded landscape makes that stretches away beyond Garston and Aigburth! And Nelly wonders to herself if it is possible that heaven can be more beautiful than this.
But Benny soon gets impatient to be off into the wood, and, humouring his wish, they set off up the narrow path, between banks of ferns and primroses and wild flowers of almost every hue. The tall trees wave their branches above them, and the birds whistle out their happy hearts. Here and there the grasshoppers chirp among the undergrowth, and myriads of insects make the air vocal with their ceaseless hum.
They had scarcely got into the heart of the wood ere they found that Benny was missing; but they were neither surprised nor alarmed at this, for the lad was fairly brimming over with delight, and could not stay for five minutes in the same place if he were to be crowned.