'But they must kill lots of little birds, whether they eat them or not,'

said Maia, 'to get all those quant.i.ties and quant.i.ties of feathers.'

'Kill the little birds!' cried Silva and Waldo both at once. 'Kill their own birds! Maia, what are you thinking of? As if any creature that lives in Christmas-tree Land would kill any other! Why, the feathers are the birds' presents to the king and queen. They keep all that drop off and bring them once a year, and that's been done for years and years, till the whole of the nest is lined with them.'

'How nice!' replied Maia. 'I'm very glad the eagles are so kind. But they're not so _funny_ as the squirrels. They look so very solemn.'

'They must be solemn,' said Waldo. 'They're not like the squirrels, who have nothing to do but jump about.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Rollo. 'Have you forgotten that the world would stop if Mr. Bushy didn't climb to the top of the tree?'

'And what would happen if the eagles left off watching the sun?' said Waldo.

'I don't know,' said Maia eagerly. 'Do tell us, Waldo.'

Waldo looked at her.

'I don't know either,' he said. 'Perhaps the sun would go to sleep, and then there would be a nice confusion.'

'You're laughing at me,' said Maia, in rather an offended tone. 'I don't see how I'm to be expected to know everything; if the squirrels and the eagles and all the creatures here are different from everywhere else, how could I tell?'

'Here's the collation!' exclaimed Rollo, and looking up, the others saw the falcon and the hawk flying back again, carrying between them a large basket, from which, when they had set it down beside the table, they cleverly managed, with beaks and claws, to take all sorts of mysterious things, which they arranged upon the table. There was no lamb, either raw or roasted, for all the repast consisted of fruits. Fruits of every kind the children had ever heard of, and a great many of which they did not even know the names, but which were more delicious than you, who have never tasted them, can imagine.

'You see the eagle king and queen have no need to kill poor little lambs,' said Silva. And Maia agreed with her that no one who could get such fruits to eat, need ever wish for any other food. While she was speaking, the same soft rustle which they had heard before sounded overhead, and again the two great majestic birds alighted beside them.

The four children started to their feet.

'Thank you so much for the delicious fruit, eagle king and eagle queen,'

said Maia, who was seldom backward at making speeches.

'We are glad you found it to your taste,' said the king. 'It has come from many a far-away land--lands you have perhaps scarcely even dreamt of, but which to us seem not so strange or distant.'

'Do you fly away so very far?' asked Maia, but the eagles only gleamed at her with their wonderful eyes, and shook their heads.

'It is not for us to tell what you could not understand,' said the king.

'They who can gaze undazzled on the sun must see many things.'

Maia drew back a little.

'They frighten me rather,' she whispered to the others. 'They are so solemn and mysterious.'

'But that needn't frighten you,' said Silva. 'Rollo isn't frightened.'

'Rollo's a boy,' replied Maia, as if that settled the matter.

Waldo now pointed out some steps in the rock leading up still higher.

'The eagles want us to go up there,' he said. 'We shall see right over the forest and ever so far.'

And so they did, for the steps led up a long way till they ended on another rock-shelf right on the face of the cliff. From here the great fir-forests looked but like dark patches far below, while away, away in the distance stretched on one side the great plain across which the children had journeyed on their first coming to the white castle; and on the other the distant forms of mountain ranges, gray-blue, shading fainter and fainter till the clouds themselves looked more real.

It was cold, very cold, up here on the edge of the great bare rocks. The beauty of the sunrise had sobered down into the chilly freshness of an early summer morning; the world seemed still asleep, and the children shivered a little.

'I don't think I should like to live always as high up as this,' said Maia. 'It's very lonely and very cold.'

'You would need to be dressed in feathers like the eagles if you did,'

replied Silva; 'and if one had eyes like theirs, I dare say one would never feel lonely. One would see so much.'

'I wonder,' said Maia--and then she stopped.

'What were you going to say?' asked Rollo.

Maia's eyes looked far over the plain as if, like the eagles, they would pierce the distance.

'It was from there we came,' she said. 'I wonder if it will be from there that father will come to take us away. Do you think that the eagles will know when he is coming? do you think they will see him from very far off?'

Silva looked over the plain without speaking, and into her dark eyes there crept something that was not in Maia's blue ones.

'Maia,' exclaimed Rollo reproachfully, 'Silva is crying. She doesn't like you to talk of us going away.'

In an instant Maia's arms were round Silva's neck.

'Don't cry, Silva--you mustn't,' she said. 'When we go away you and Waldo shall come too--we will ask our father, won't we, Rollo?'

'And G.o.dmother?' said Silva, smiling again. 'What would she say? We are her children, Maia, and the children of the forest. We should not be fit to live as you do in the great world of men out away there. No; we can always love each other, and perhaps you and Rollo will come away out of the world sometimes to see us--but we must stay in our own country.'

'Never mind--don't talk about it just now,' said Maia. 'I wish I hadn't said anything about father coming. I dare say he won't come for a very long while, and when we can see you and Waldo we are never dull. It's only at the castle when they give us such lots of lessons and everybody is so prim and so cross if we're the least bit late. Oh, dear!--I was forgetting--shan't we be late for breakfast this morning? Is G.o.dmother coming to fetch us?'

'We are going home now,' said Waldo. 'But first we must say good-bye to the eagles. Here they are,' for as he spoke the two royal birds came circling down from overhead and settled themselves on the very edge of the cliff, whose dizzy height they calmly overlooked--their gaze fixed far beyond.

'That is where they always stay watching,' said Waldo, in a low voice, and then the children went forward till they were but a few steps behind the pair. Farther it would not have been safe to go.

'Good-bye, king and queen,' they said all together, and the eagles, slowly turning round, though without moving from their places, answered in their grave voices:

'Farewell, children. We will watch you, though you may not know it.

Farewell.'

Then Waldo led the others down the rock stair by which they had come up--down past the balcony where they had had their collation of fruit, till they found themselves in the feather-lined hall.

'There is something rather sad about the eagles,' said Maia. 'Do you think it is watching so much that makes them sad?'

'Perhaps,' said Silva. 'Come and sit down here in this snug corner.

Look, there is a feather arm-chair for each of us--it is a little chilly, don't you think?'

'Yes, perhaps it is. But tell me if you know why the eagles are sad.'

'I think they are more grave than sad,' replied Silva. 'I dare say watching so much does make them so.'

'Why? Do they see so far? Do they see all sorts of things?' asked Maia in a rather awe-struck tone. 'Are they like fairies, Silva?'

'I don't know exactly,' said Silva. 'But I think they are very wise, and I expect they know a great deal.'