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"Good morning, Sara," he said in a low tone, when he reached her side. "A glorious morning, isn't it? Avrillia thought you would enjoy seeing the Birds fed, and the children at their winter sports. Avrillia herself is very busy just now; the suet gave out and she's gone to order some more. But I daresay she'll have time to speak to you after a while.
Sara saw that, though he was still rather bashful, Schlorge had taken a great fancy to her. It pleased her very much; he was such a useful and accommodating person. While she was trying to decide which one of several places she would ask him to show to her, the Plynck remarked, gently, "Avrillia's at home." Avrillia that was it!
"Stand at attention until I give you further orders." And each Gunkus stood perfectly still and straight, holding his coal-scuttle by the handle between his teeth, and dropping his eyes into it. They hit the bottom of the scuttle with a ringing, martial sound. "Now," said Pirlaps, "how many hands for the bellows? Avrillia will be busy writing poems; Mrs. Snimmy will be busy grinding them.
"No," was all Avrillia said, but her voice made Sara's heart quiver, for in the sound of it she seemed to hear the temple-bells, and the fairy hand-organ she had heard in the steep street at Zinariola, and the drowsy tinkle of the fountain in the Butterfly Palace, and the little Laughs that leaped about the mountain, and the morning and evening sheep-bells, all gathered together into one sound that seemed to say that presently she would have to say good-by to Avrillia.
As he didn't have it, however, he leaned against the alabaster wall, and waited patiently; though Sara, it must be confessed, was quite restless. After what seemed to her a very long time, Avrillia drew a deep breath and shook back her golden hair, and moving like a lost bird to the balustrade, leaned far out and let her new poem flutter from her hand.
The waffles were so tiny and delicious that, every time she had swallowed one, Sara almost thought she had dreamed it. "I didn't know you could cook, Avrillia," she said, shyly and admiringly. Avrillia looked pleased. "Oh, anybody can cook!" she said, lightly. Sara understood from her tone that not everybody could write poems on rose-leaves.
Flying around her hair, clinging to her silken skirts, dancing among the shell-flowers, swarming over the balcony, playing a dainty game up and down the marble stairs oh, it was the children! The children were at home! And when Avrillia saw Sara she came toward her with the loveliest look of welcome, the children hanging all around her like rose-garlands.
"And poetry?" squeaked the Quotient, fiercely, "Don't poets have to count their feet to write poems?" But at that juncture they were all electrified to see Avrillia stepping forward, looking so beautiful and so queenly and so transfigured by righteous indignation that even the invaders merely blinked.
And Avrillia's house had sails, instead of curtains. For, without knowing it, it was Avrillia's balcony that Sara had seen from the stump. "Well, there's Pirlaps," said Schlorge, lifting his shoe politely and turning back toward the Dimplesmithy. "He'll tell you where to find Avrillia."
When I'm away from Avrillia I don't need the step." All this time they had been walking along hand in hand. Sara noticed that they had left the Verge behind, and were following a very pleasant sort of ridge, from which they could see down into a sort of hollow for smiles and smiles, and, beyond the hollow, the buff-colored hills and mountains that formed the walls of the amphitheatre.
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