Fairies Afield. Molesworth Mrs.
however that may have been," said Aria, as she repeated this to Linde, "certainly her gifts have proved lasting. The jar has been knocked over several times, you know, and never broken, and the powder is as fresh as a newly gathered rose."
"Yes," Linde agreed, after a good long sniff at the jar's contents. "It's delicious. It makes me think of all sorts of lovely summer things."
Then they consulted as to how they could best carry the precious leaves to the market for sale.
"We needn't take them all," pleaded Linde. "I do wish we needn't sell any. It seems a shame."
"Almost," her sister replied, "but it can't be helped. If only I had had more of the powder," she repeated, "we might have collected and dried quantities of rose-leaves."
"Or if we knew how to make the powder," said Linde.
But that knowledge was not to be had.
Aria had reached down the jar, which stood on a high shelf in a corner, and the fragrance seemed to fill the room.
"Leave off sniffing it, Linde, dear," she said, for the child kept bending over it, "and let us plan how to take the leaves to market. We can't of course carry the jar, but it wouldn't do only to pack them in a sheet of paper. Ah, I have it," and she ran up the tiny ladder-like staircase which led to their little bedroom above, returning with a good-sized old-fashioned box or canister of tin, with a firm lid. "The very thing," she exclaimed joyously.
"It will be dreadfully clumsy and heavy to carry," objected Linde.
"Oh no, I can easily manage it, and a bunch or two of flowers as well, without being overladen," said Aria. "And see here, Linde, I will take this little cup," and she held up a small mug of lustre ware, "I fancy it will hold about two ounces weight of the leaves. For that quantity say we charge half a groat – and if we are lucky enough to sell twenty or even twelve cups full, that will get us through next week beautifully."
Then she filled the little cup and weighed its contents. They were just over her idea. And Linde's spirits rose again as she helped her sister to cleanse the canister from every speck of dust or mould and then to fill it with the perfumed leaves.
All that day the cottage seemed pervaded by the fragrance. Accidentally a few of the leaves and some grains of the powder fell among Linde's curly hair, and when she brushed it out at night she was amused at its scent. It was not to be wondered at perhaps, that as her head lay on the pillow she should have dreamt of the jar and its contents and the old mystery associated with them.
This was her dream.
She thought that she and her sister were standing at their usual corner of the market-place, their posies of flowers and large bunches of autumn leaves carefully arranged before them on the rough wooden table, the tin canister in the middle and a little heap of the leaves displayed in front of it. It seemed very early, there were scarcely any people about. Suddenly up came a small old woman, a stranger and what Linde would have called "a foreigner," for her dress was either that of another country or of a date already quite passed out of fashion. She glanced at the flowers, and appeared to be passing on, when she caught sight of the little heap of dried leaves, on which she stopped short and Linde felt a pair of bright eyes fixed on her. Then the stranger smiled and nodded, and, bending towards the child, murmured in her ear the mysterious words: "Three times, and then ask the robin."
"How – what do you mean?" exclaimed Linde in her dream, trying to catch hold of the owner of the piercing eyes, as she turned away. But before the little girl could touch her, she was gone, and in the start of disappointment Linde awoke.
"What a queer dream," she said to herself, as she lay thinking of it. "I wish Aria were awake, I do so want to tell it her."
But Aria was fast asleep, her face looking so peaceful in the moonlight that Linde was too unselfish to wish to disturb her, for of late she knew well that the elder girl's waking hours were full of anxiety.
"I must wait till the morning," thought the child, and turning round she herself was soon in a dreamless slumber.
The next day Aria listened with great interest to Linde's story.
"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."
Dame Barbara was quite satisfied and greatly delighted.
"Here," she said, fumbling for her substantial purse, "a groat for two ounces of it, did you say? No, a half-groat only? My dear, you'll have to raise your prices if the perfume is so excellent! Well to begin with, give me the four ounces straight away, and here's a half-groat over and above what it all comes to – dried leaves and fresh ones and flowers, all together – just the tiny silver piece for luck, you know."
Aria and Linde smiled and thanked her. And the thanks were repeated, when, as she turned away, she called out, "I'll be the first to tell my cronies of this. Dear, dear, I feel as if I were in a fairy garden myself with the pleasure of the perfume. I had no idea that the robins' forest had such treasures of roses. For you live in the forest, do you not, or close by?"
"Yes, just at its edge," they replied, "but," Linde went on eagerly, "we never knew it was called after the robins. It is odd that we never heard it."
Dame Barbara nodded sagaciously.
"'Tis a very old name. Scarce a one but myself knows of it, nowadays," she said. "No wonder you children never heard it. There was an ancient story – just a foolish tale – that the fairies haunted the forest, till one day some cruel or stupid person killed a robin. Robins used to abound there, and they are their special favourites, you know, and since then never a fairy or a robin has been seen there. But I must hurry off to finish my marketing."
Aria and Linde looked at each other.
"It must mean something," said Linde in a low and almost awe-struck tone. "My dream, I mean, and the old woman saying, 'Ask the robin.'"
"Yes," her sister agreed. "It is odd too that we never heard the old name or the old story before. I wonder if father had? I have a sort of remembrance of his once saying something about our being too near the forest for robins to make their home with us, but I had a silly childish idea that he only meant that all robins disliked forests."
"I think I must