The Magic Nuts

'It must be something like the bottom of the sea,' said Hildegarde, 'where the mermaids live.'

'No,' said Leonore, 'I think it is just like the sky at sunset. I have often wished I could get up on one of the clouds and see over to the other side.'

'And now that is what you are seeing,' said the fairy.

'But please,' began Hildegarde again, 'if I may ask you questions, do tell me what you are all busy about, besides teaching the birds to sing?'

'I will tell you a few things,' said the fairy, 'though you would not understand if I tried to tell you all. We have charge of the zephyrs and the breezes. We send them out on their errands, and we have to see that each does its appointed task.'

'Oh,' interrupted Leonore, 'is this the home of the Four Winds? – is this the place where they start from, and meet again and make all their plans?'

The fairy shook her head.

'No,' she replied, 'the Four Winds are not fairies, they are spirits, and above us all; it is only the little winds, so to say – which are to the great ones like the little brooks compared to the great ocean – over whom we have authority. And,' she added more lightly, 'they are troublesome enough sometimes, I assure you – mischievous little imps – though they can be very sweet too, and seldom do real harm, and indeed, as a rule, a great deal of good. But for them your world would be dull and dreary.'

'Yes,' said Leonore, 'I should not like to live where everything was always quite still. And the little breezes are kind, aren't they? When it is very hot, it is lovely to feel one of them softly blowing round your face.'

'They are kind and tender too,' said the fairy; 'some of the gentlest among them are specially employed in refreshing poor sick people in their hot stifling rooms. They wait outside the windows patiently till they get a chance of entering. Then some of them spend most of their time in playing with little children, filling the sails of their tiny boats, or flying their kites and shuttlecocks for them.' While talking thus, the fairy had led them onwards. But now she stopped in front again of another silver gate.

'Inside here,' she said, 'is one of the nurseries of the little clouds; we let them out every now and then for a race. Would you like to see them? It is prettiest perhaps by moonlight, but I must not keep you here till night.'

She opened the gate, and out flew a crowd of feathery forms, dancing, leaping, tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape; then at a sign from the fairy, off they flew, upwards, a dozen or more together, in a whirl and flutter.

You can scarcely imagine anything prettier than it was.

They flew so high that for a minute or two they were out of sight, then back they came again, some much in advance of the others, till the first one who had gained the race floated down to the fairy's feet, taking shape as it did so till it grew into the shadowy form of a little cherub, smiling up with its sky-blue eyes for its reward.

'Well done,' said the fairy. 'Now off you can go, all of you, for an hour or two; some little streams are very thirsty to-day, I hear, and will be glad to see you.'

And at once the whole feathery troop disappeared. The children turned to the fairy with smiling delight.

'How pretty and good they are,' said Hildegarde. 'I shall always think of you when I see the little clouds scudding across the sky – I have often thought they looked so alive. Do you never come down to our world yourself, fairy?'

'Oh yes,' she replied, 'we have to keep all the wind instruments in order. Some we bring back with us here to repair, in the middle of the night, so that nobody misses them; but some we work at down where they are, and people say the weather has changed, and that somehow their instruments have got right again of themselves. That is one of our secrets, you see.'

'I wish you would let us know when you come,' said Hildegarde.

'We wouldn't tell anybody, and I am sure we would gladly sit up all night.'

But the fairy shook her head.

'That cannot be,' she said, 'you would not be able to see me down there. Still, I can send you messages sometimes; the little breezes will always be glad to carry you my love or to kiss you for me.'

Suddenly she stopped speaking and held up her hand.

'Hush,' she said; 'yes, I thought I heard it. It is the spinning-wheel fairy – don't you hear the whirr? It means, I fear, that you must be going. Yes, there she is, though your eyes can't see her; she is almost straight above us. She has caught two of the little clouds on their way down, and is sailing on them.'

'How shall we get to her?' exclaimed the children.

'You forget,' laughed the fairy, 'you forget what wings are for,' and with the words she blew softly on their shoulders, the wings stretched themselves, and off flew the children.

The quickness of their flight made them close their eyes, and for a moment or two they could hear nothing but the rush of the air as they met it. Soon, however, came the sound of a now well-known voice.

'So I had to come to fetch you,' it said, 'instead of your looking for me. That shows, I hope, that the air-fairies entertained you well?'

'Yes, indeed,' said both the children. 'It was all so pretty, and they were so kind that we didn't feel the least frightened of offending them. It was quite different from gnomeland,' Hildegarde went on, 'and yet you say that both these countries are on the way to real Fairyland?'

'Yes,' replied their friend, 'so they are, and so are many, many others.'

'I wish we could see them all,' said Leonore.

'That would not do,' said the fairy. 'It would take you too much out of your own country, which is not good for any one. But now, dears, I want you to rest a little; even if you go to sleep it won't matter, while I am taking you home.'

She held out her arms, and both little girls nestled down beside her.

'Are you going to take us all the way home yourself?' asked Leonore. 'That will be very nice.' The fairy did not reply, but she began spinning again, which certainly no one but a fairy could do seated on a cloud, and with a little girl tucked under each arm. The soft whirr was very soothing and pleasant to hear; soon both pairs of eyes closed drowsily, and it seemed to their little owners that quite a long time had passed when they awoke, roused by the touch of a feathery kiss on their foreheads, and a softly whispered 'Goodbye, my dears, goodbye for the present.'

And again they found themselves among the trees a little to the rear of the Castle. It was quite daylight, though the afternoons were drawing in now. They felt perfectly bright and rested, and looked at each other with happy faces.

'It was all too lovely, wasn't it?' said Leonore, 'and this time I don't feel as if we had been dreaming, do you, Hildegarde?'

Hildegarde was on the point of replying, when from far above their heads came the note of some bird as it flew by.

'To think that we know where you were taught to sing, you little dear,' she said, gazing upwards. 'There will be lots of things to remind us always of the air-fairies – every time we feel the little breezes on our cheeks, or see the clouds chasing each other across the sky!'

'And we have still two nuts left,' said Leonore. 'I wonder what will happen when we crack them, Hildegarde?'

'We must be patient,' was the reply; 'perhaps we may have to wait a good while before the time comes for that. But we must hurry home now, I think, or grandmamma may be getting anxious.'

For this day was one which Leonore was spending with Hildegarde at the Castle, as happened now and then for a change, especially when the weather was unsettled. And these were happy days; for the Castle, as Hildegarde had said, was a splendid place for playing in when there were two to play, though rather too large and lonely for one little girl by herself.

Their coffee and cakes were waiting for them in the little turret-room, which was Hildegarde's own when on a visit to her grandparents. And when they had thoroughly enjoyed these, for travels through the air naturally make little flesh-and-blood girls hungry and thirsty, Hildegarde took her friend to the drawing-room, where the old Baroness usually sat. She was a tall, fine-looking old lady, a little bit 'frightening' at first, till one got to know her, for her dark eyes were still bright and piercing, not like Aunt Anna's gentle, dreamy, blue ones. She spent a great deal of her time in working at beautiful embroidery, as her sight was still good, though in the cold weather, which was now coming on, she was not strong enough to go out of doors except on very fine days.

She looked up with a smile as they entered the room.

'Well, my dear children,' she said, 'I hope you have had some good hot coffee, for you have stayed out rather late, and the evenings are getting very cold. Soon you will scarcely be able to go out after dinner, especially as every one is prophesying that we are to have an early winter and a severe one.'

'We have not been at all cold, thank you, grandmamma,' said Hildegarde. 'I hope it won't be a very severe winter, at least not before Christmas – for do you know, Leonore,' and she turned to her little friend, 'that sometimes when it snows heavily here, we cannot even get from the Castle to Aunt Anna's house?'

'Oh dear,' said Leonore, rather startled, 'I shouldn't like that at all; it would be dreadfully dull if we couldn't be together at Christmas.'

'Dull for us too,' said the Baroness, 'for many, many years my dear friend, Fraulein Anna, has spent Christmas with us. But if there is any sign of snowstorms before then, the best plan will be for you three to come and stay at the Castle for a week or two.'

The children's faces lighted up with pleasure at the idea.

'In that case,' said Hildegarde, 'I shall almost hope for signs of a snowstorm. You have no idea how nice and warm the Castle can be made. Grandpapa loves huge fires, and the walls are so thick that once the rooms get well heated they don't get cold again quickly.'

'Not in your turret, I am afraid, Hildegarde,' said her grandmother. 'You will have to move out of it, I expect. Indeed, this very day I have been talking to old Maria about preparing a room for you on the south side. The turret-rooms cannot but be cold, as they have so much outer wall.'

Hildegarde looked a little distressed.

'I do so love my turret-room,' she murmured, 'unless,' and she hesitated, 'oh grandmamma,' she went on after a moment's pause, 'if I might have the blue-silk room. I should be so careful to keep it very nice, and in the alcove two little beds could stand, so that if Leonore comes to stay here we might be together all night as well as all day.'

Her grandmother smiled.

'We shall see,' she said, but even this seemed to satisfy the little girl. She jumped up and threw her arms round the Baroness.

'Most big people when they say "We shall see" mean "No," she said, but you are not like that, grandmamma. Generally, your "We shall sees" mean "Yes, you shall have what you want if it is possible."'

'I should like to see the blue-silk room,' said Leonore, half timidly, 'it is such a pretty name. Are the chairs all covered with blue silk?'

'Better than that,' said Hildegarde, 'the walls are hung with blue silk, and there are wreaths of roses worked at the top of the curtains and on the sofas and everywhere. Who was it that worked them, grandmamma? My great-great-great-grandmother, wasn't it?'

'No; two "greats" are enough,' said the Baroness, 'the embroidery was done by my grandmother; it is really wonderfully beautiful, and it is difficult to believe that one pair of hands did it all. So it is scarcely surprising that there should be an old story telling that the fairies helped my grandmother to do it.'

The children glanced at each other.

'I daresay it's quite true,' said Hildegarde, but her grandmother only laughed.

'Come now, my dear,' she said, 'you must not be too fanciful. The fairies who helped our ancestors were probably those of industry and perseverance – very good fairies too.'

'But now, my child,' she went on, turning to Leonore, 'I do not, of course, want to hurry you away, but I am afraid Aunt Anna and Elsa will be wondering what has become of you, besides which, I do not want you to catch cold through coming to visit my Hildegarde.'

Leonore started up. 'Yes, I must go,' she said.

Hildegarde accompanied her as usual to the foot of the hill.

'Ask Fraulein Elsa,' said Hildegarde, as they parted, 'to let you come to-morrow morning instead of my going to you, and I will get grandmamma's leave to show you the blue-silk room by full daylight. Then in the afternoon, I daresay, grandmamma will let me run down to you.'

'Yes,' Leonore replied, 'I should like that very much; I have a feeling, Hildegarde, that there must be something "fairy" about that room.' And so saying she ran off.

CHAPTER X

THE BLUE-SILK ROOM

For this let each remember – life cannot all be play.The New Year's Answer.

But the children's plans for the next day did not come to pass. Unluckily, Leonore had caught cold. It was nothing very bad, but she was subject to sore throats sometimes, which made Fraulein doubly careful, if ever she saw any symptoms of her having had a chill. And for some days to come the little girl was not allowed to go out.

At first she felt rather dull and depressed, but as her friends were soon satisfied that there was not much the matter with her, Hildegarde was allowed to come to see her.

'How did you catch cold?' were her visitor's first words; 'it couldn't surely have been from – ' and she stopped short with a smile, for curiously enough the children did not talk very much when they were together, in an ordinary way, of their fairy adventures.

Leonore gave a little laugh.

'From riding on a cloud,' she said softly. 'No, I am quite sure it was not from that, though certainly if we told anybody about it, they would think it a sure way of catching cold.'

'They wouldn't believe it,' said Hildegarde, 'or at least they would think we had been dreaming, but do you know, Leonore,' she went on eagerly, 'I shouldn't wonder if some good came of your cold; it's only a fortnight to Christmas now, and what grandmamma said that last day you were at the Castle seems coming true. There are all the signs of a hard winter, they say, and though grandmamma hasn't told me so, I have a great idea that they are planning for you all to come and stay at the Castle with us.'

Leonore's eyes danced with pleasure.

'How lovely that would be,' she said, 'do tell me what makes you think so, Hildegarde?'

'Two or three things,' was the reply. 'I heard grandpapa talking about this house, "Aunt Anna's little house," he called it. He said the roof should have something done to it, in case of heavy snow, and that the bailiff should have told him of this before, for it scarcely could be done while the ladies were living in it. Then grandmamma smiled, and said that she thought the difficulty might be got over. And once or twice lately I have met old Maria on her way to the blue-silk room. One day, she and another maid were carrying mattresses and things in there, and when I asked her what it was for, she looked funny, and said something about airing things, and evidently didn't want me to go into the room, or ask her any more questions about it. So I shouldn't wonder at all if they are preparing for your all coming. You see grandmamma is like that; she doesn't do things by halves, and if you are to come, she would like to add to our pleasure by giving us the blue-silk room together.'

Leonore felt so excited that she could scarcely speak.

'I wonder how soon we shall know?' she said at last. 'It wouldn't do to ask Aunt Anna, or Fraulein, I suppose?'

Hildegarde shook her wise little head very decidedly.

'Oh no,' she said, 'if they wanted us to know they would have told us. If it is to be at all, it is to be a surprise; we must just be patient for a few days.'

Their patience, as it proved, was not very sorely tried. The very first day that Leonore was well enough to go out again without fear of fresh cold, she was met by Hildegarde at the foot of the hill, and Hildegarde's beaming face told its own tale.

'May I, oh may I tell Leonore?' she said to Fraulein Elsa, 'grandmamma has given me leave provided you and Aunt Anna have no objection.'

Fraulein could not help smiling.

'My dear child,' she said, 'there would not be much use in stopping you now; Leonore cannot but guess that there is a surprise in store; the very way you came dancing down the hill was enough to show it. But we must not keep Leonore standing. Come home with us and chatter as much as you like.'

And in another moment the secret, which of course Leonore had already guessed, was told.

'You are all coming to stay at the Castle for Christmas,' she exclaimed, 'that is to say if your cold doesn't get worse, or – '

Here Fraulein positively laughed.

'And that was to be decided by testing, if it did her no harm to come out to-day,' she said. 'You should have waited till to-morrow, Hildegarde.'

The little girl looked rather penitent, but Leonore soon reassured her —

'Of course it won't get worse,' she said, 'I haven't the least, tiniest bit of a scrap of sore throat now; the only thing is,' she went on, 'that it doesn't seem as if any snowstorms were coming,' and she looked up doubtfully into her governess's face.

'But why should you want snowstorms?' asked Fraulein, 'one can be very happy at Christmas time, even if the weather is mild and the fields still green.'

'Oh,' said Leonore, a little confused, for she did not want to take away the pleasure of the 'surprise,' 'it was only that I thought – ' and she hesitated.

Hildegarde came to the rescue.

'Oh,' she said, 'it was only that grandmamma had already mentioned something to us about your perhaps coming to stay at the Castle for Christmas, if the weather got very bad; and there was something about Aunt Anna's house needing repair. But all that doesn't matter now in the least. It is fixed, quite fixed, do you hear, Leonore? – that you are all coming next Monday, whether it snows, or hails, or thunders, or whatever it does.'

So far as the present was concerned, there was not much sign of any great weather disturbance, for the day was mild and bright, and Leonore was by no means the worse, but decidedly the better, for her little expedition. Both children, as children always do, whenever there is any pleasure in prospect, thought that the days would never pass till 'next Monday.' But pass they did, and it would have been difficult to find two happier little maidens than Hildegarde and her guest, when the rather lumbering old carriage, which had been sent to fetch the three visitors, drew up in front of the Castle door.

'Come, come, quick,' were Hildegarde's first words to Leonore, 'I am in such a hurry to take you to our room,' and scarcely allowing her little friend time to receive the greetings of the Baron and Baroness, and their two younger sons, Hildegarde's uncles, who had arrived the night before to spend Christmas at home, she seized her little friend's hand, and hurried her off to a part of the Castle, which Leonore had not yet seen.

'Leonore,' she said, stopping to take breath, for though the steps of the staircase which they were mounting were shallow, she had raced up them at a tremendous rate. 'Leonore, it is as I thought, we are to have the blue-silk room.'

Up one other little flight they went, across a small landing and along a corridor, at the end of which a door stood partly open. A pleasant sparkle of firelight met them, and in another moment they were in the most fascinating room that Leonore had ever seen or even dreamt of.

As Hildegarde had described, it was all hung with blue silk, round which were worked lovely wreaths of rosebuds. And the remarkable thing was that the colours both of the silk and the embroidery were as fresh as if they had only just been made, though, as the Baroness had told her, Leonore knew that certainly more than a century and a half had passed since the room had first been furnished. She stood still, gazing round her.

'Oh what a lovely room!' she exclaimed. 'I had no idea any room could have been so beautiful, though you told me about it. But where are our beds, Hildegarde?'

Hildegarde laughed.

'That's the beauty of it,' she said, drawing back, as she spoke, the blue hangings at one end, thus disclosing to view a recess in which stood two little beds side by side. 'It is like several rooms instead of one, there are two or three alcoves that you don't see when the curtains are drawn at night; one of them has a great big window to the south, where it is beautifully warm. I think we shall call that alcove our boudoir.'

It was a delightful room, and the two children were very happy, till summoned downstairs to supper, in arranging the newcomer's possessions, and planning how they should spend their time during Leonore's stay at the Castle.

'We are sure to have a good deal of fun,' said Hildegarde, 'for the next week or so while my uncles stay; it is rather a pity that the hard winter that was talked so much about hasn't begun yet, for they would have skated with us.'

'I have never learnt to skate,' said Leonore, 'but your uncles look very kind, and perhaps they would have taught me.'

'Yes,' Hildegarde replied, 'I am sure they would; they are very nice, though not to be compared with papa. If only he and mamma were here, and your father, Leonore, we should have everything we could want in the world, wouldn't we?'

'Even to knowing that we have still two nuts to crack,' said Leonore in a low voice.

Hildegarde's grandfather looked round the well-filled table with pleasure, when all had taken their places.

'This is much better,' he said heartily, 'than being alone, as we were last Christmas, not even our little Hildegarde was here. If only your father and mother and our little friend's father too,' he added kindly, turning to Leonore, 'were here, I should feel quite satisfied.'

'That is just what we were saying on our way downstairs,' said Hildegarde, 'I do believe grandpapa, you have something of a fairy about you too, to guess one's thoughts as you often do. Grandmamma is certainly a kind of fairy godmother, as well as being grandmamma. She plans such lovely surprises. Leonore and I are so happy in the blue-silk room.'

'Oh that is where you have taken up your quarters, is it?' said her grandfather. 'Well, you could not be anywhere better; it has the name of being the luckiest room in the Castle under fairy guardianship, not that I quite believe in such things, though I do think the Castle has some fairy visitors,' he went on more gravely; 'the fairies of love and kindness are with us I hope; indeed, when I look back through a long life, mostly spent here, I think we have been a specially favoured family. My own parents and grandparents were good and kind to everybody.'

'And so, I am sure, are you and grandmamma,' said Hildegarde eagerly.

Leonore looked up half timidly.

'There are other fairies too, the fairies of industry and perseverance, that your grandmother told us about,' she said to Hildegarde.

The Baroness overheard her.

'Yes,' she said, with a smile, 'they must have had a hand in the adornment of the blue-silk room.'

It was a charming nest in which to fall asleep, with the firelight dancing on the lovely colours of the sheeny silk, and it was a charming room to wake up in the next morning, when the first rays of the pale wintry sunshine began to creep in through the one window, which the little girls had left uncurtained the night before. They were later than usual of getting up, for they had been later than usual of going to bed. Rules were to be relaxed somewhat during the Christmas holidays.

'Are you awake, Hildegarde?' said Leonore. 'Oh yes,' was the reply. 'Doesn't the room look pretty?'

Leonore raised herself on her elbow. 'Yes,' she said, 'and so beautifully neat. Did you tidy it at all after I got into bed last night, Hildegarde?'

'No indeed,' laughed her friend, 'I was too sleepy. I wonder if Amalia has been in already this morning without waking us.'

'I could almost fancy she had,' said Leonore, for I have a dreamy feeling of having heard some one moving about softly, as if they were putting things straight or dusting.'