HAPPY DAYS.
Nearly every day, after that first meeting, the children played with
Una in the wood and joined her in the glen.
"The glen's nicer now it's Una's than when it was ours," said Dan one
day, as he sat munching one of the nice little sugar cakes which Marie
had made for them that morning.
"It wasn't ever ours really," said Norah.
"Well, anyway, it's Una's now, and it's much nicer," said Dan, looking
gravely into the basket Una held out to him, and choosing a round, pink
cake with a cherry in the middle.
Then one day something still nicer came to pass. The foreign gentleman
came to call on Mr. Carew, to ask if he would allow his children to
come every day and have lessons with his little girl.
The children were delighted when they heard of this. They had met the
foreign gentleman in the lane as they were coming home from a walk with
Rose, and they had wondered whether he had been to see their father.
"I hope he has not been to say we mustn't go and play with Una in the
glen any more," Dan had said; but they had no idea what the foreign
gentleman's visit had really been about until their father told them
the next morning, after breakfast.
Mr. and Mrs. Carew had needed a little time in which to think about and
talk over Monsieur Gen's proposal, and they did not want the children
to know anything about it until all was settled.
For the last year--ever since Mary and Ruth had gone to school, and
since Miss Rice, the governess who had been with them for over six
years, had got married--the younger children had only had lessons when
their mother or father could find time to teach them.
The school fees of the four elder children came to so large a sum of
money that the vicar could not afford to have a governess at home for
Norah and Tom and Dan; and as both Mr. and Mrs. Carew led very busy
lives, lessons had sometimes to be put on one side altogether, and the
children were beginning to forget a great deal which they had learned a
year ago with Miss Rice.
The foreign gentleman's offer, therefore, had been a great relief to
Mr. and Mrs. Carew, and the children were delighted at the idea of
going to the Grange every day to do their lessons with Una.
"And we shall be able to tell Una more about the Bible now, shan't we,
father?" said Norah. "She wants to know such a lot more. Nobody has
ever told her about Christmas before--that it is Jesus Christ's
birthday, I mean; and that that is why everyone is so happy then and
tries to make everyone else happy, just like He used to do. And she
didn't know God made the world, or that He takes care of us, or
anything."
"Poor little girl!" said Mrs. Carew.
"Poor child, indeed!" said the vicar. "I wonder why Monsieur Gen----,"
and then he stopped suddenly, thinking, no doubt, that the children
were quite curious enough already about their foreign neighbours.
"After all, it is not for us to pry into other people's affairs," he
said, with a smile. "Teach little Una all you can about the Bible and
God's love, Norah; but do not worry her with questions about her father
and his doings."
A week later the children went to the Grange for their first morning's
lessons with Una.
"I feel just as if we were going into a magic palace," whispered Norah,
as they waited for the door to be opened.
"And as if we should be turned into snakes and wolves and all sorts of
horrid animals, before we came out again," said Tom.
"Or into one of those marble statues," whispered Dan, as they followed
the servant across the hall to the foot of the staircase, where another
servant met them and led the way upstairs. At the end of a long
passage he paused and flung open a door, standing aside for the
children to pass.
"Here lives the wizard!" murmured Tom under his breath; but it was only
little Una who advanced to meet them across the big, bare room, bowing
primly to each of the three in turn, then turning to introduce the
English governess who was seated at a table near the window.
"Miss Berrill, my good English _gouvernante_," she said; and Miss
Berrill smiled at the child's introduction, and told her to go with her
little friends to take off their hats and coats, and that then she
would try to find out how much they all knew.
The children thoroughly enjoyed those morning lessons and the hour of
play afterwards. Week after week glided by until the Christmas
holidays drew near, and pale, silent, little Una seemed turned into a
different child.
In vain had the children begged for her to spend Christmas Day with
them at the vicarage.
"My daughter does not visit," Monsieur Gen had replied; and the
children felt that there was nothing more to be said.
They still stood very much in awe of Una's tall grave father, who
looked in upon them now and again while they were at lessons or play,
but never stopped to chat or romp with his little girl; and merely bent
his head in acknowledgment of the stiff little curtsey with which Una
always greeted him in obedience to Marie's directions.
On the afternoon of Christmas Day the children carried a small parcel
of home-made gifts and almond toffee to Una; then stayed with her to
sing some Christmas hymns and carols, and to tell her over again that
wonderful old story of the first Christmas morning so many years ago.
With eager face and hungry eyes Una drank in Norah's words, turning to
Tom every now and then for the explanation of some difficult word, or
to Dan for a description of that Eastern stable; and long after the
children had gone back to the merry home circle where "Peace" and
"Goodwill," welcome angels, hovered around, the little foreigner sat
gazing at the simple print, in its plain oak frame, of the Magi
worshipping the Infant Christ,--a gift from the vicar to his children's
friend.
January, February, March, April passed by, and one sunny morning in May
Una awoke with the feeling that something very wonderful had happened
the day before.
For a few moments she could not think what it was, as she lay listening
dreamily to the songs of the birds outside; then all at once she
remembered.
The day before she had been for a long walk with old Marie through the
wood. Neither of them had ever been so far before; but Una had coaxed
her old Nurse first up one winding path, then down another--begging her
to walk just as far as the bluebells they could see in the distance, or
to the tall fir-trees where they could listen to the wood-pigeons
cooing overhead, or "just a little further," on the chance of catching
a glimpse of the cuckoo they had heard calling all the afternoon--until
old Marie had sat down on the stump of a tree, fanning herself with a
handkerchief, and declaring that she could walk no more.
"Just a little further--only a little way more, Marie, _please_," Una
begged. "I only want to see if the white flowers over there are the
dog-daisies Tom told me about. Such a funny name, isn't it? Daisies
which belong to the dogs!" And the little girl laughed merrily.
"No more, no more, Miss Una," the old Frenchwoman said. "You may run
on by yourself for a little way, like a good child, if you keep within
call." And Marie closed her eyes drowsily--quite overcome with the
long walk and the warm afternoon--while Una hunted for birds' nests
among the bushes, and added more blossoms to the already large bunch of
flowers she had picked as she came along.
She had wandered further away from old Marie than she knew, when she
came suddenly to a high, ivy-covered wall, and was able to go no
further.
On either side it stretched away from her. The little girl was not
able to see where the wall began or where it ended, and she thought
that this must be the end of the wood at last, for the wall was so high
that she could not see if trees grew on the other side of it.
Presently she began to hunt for birds' nests among the ivy--Tom had
told her once that wrens and robins often built in ivy-covered
walls--and then it was that she had made the wonderful discovery.
There, in the old brick wall, half hidden by the ivy, was a tiny oak
door.
[Illustration: "There, in the old brick wall, was a tiny oak door!"]
"The door to fairyland!" Una said to herself.
Then old Marie had called to her through the trees, and Una dropped the
curtain of ivy and turned to meet her nurse with flushed cheeks and
shining eyes, for had not Norah and Dan told her that only those who
found the door to fairyland could enter in? They must not show it to
others.
"I'll come by myself to-morrow," the little girl had thought to
herself; and she sat up in bed the next morning with a little happy
laugh of remembrance.
"I'll be in fairyland to-day," she whispered softly.