The walk this afternoon would not have been any livelier than usual, so far as nurse was concerned, but the children were so brimful of their new ideas that they felt quite bright and happy, and after a while even nurse was won over to enter into their talk, or at least to answer their questions pretty cheerfully. For though of course they had not the least idea of telling her their secret, it was too much on their minds for them not to chatter round about it, so to say. "Have you ever seen a fairy, nurse?" said Alix; and, rather to her surprise, nurse answered quite seriously: "No, my dear. Time was, I suppose, as such things were to be seen, but that's past and gone. People have to work too hard nowadays to give any thought to fairies or fairyland." But on the whole this reply was rather encouraging. "You must have heard of fairies, though," said Rafe. "Can't you remember any stories about them?" Nurse had never been great at story-telling. "Oh dear no, Master Rafe," she replied; "I never knew any except the regular old ones, that you've got far prettier in your books than I could tell them. _Sayings_ I may have heard, just countryside talk, when I was a child. My old granny, who lived and died in the village here, would have it that, for those that cared to look for them, there were odd sights and sounds in the grounds of the old house down the lane. Beautiful singing _her_ mother had heard there when she was a girl; and once when a cow strayed in there for a night, they said when she came out again she was twice the cow she had been before, and that no milk was ever as good as hers." The children looked at each other. "I wonder they didn't turn all the cows in there," said Rafe practically. "Why didn't they, nurse?" "Oh dear me, Master Rafe, that's more than I can tell. It was but an old tale. You can't expect much sense in such." "Whom did the old house belong to? Who lived there?" said Alix. "Nobody knows," said nurse. "It's too long ago to say. But there's always been good luck about the place, that's certain. You've seen the flowers there in the summer time. Some of them look as beautiful as if they were in a proper garden; and it's certain sure there's no wood near here like it for the nightingales." This was very satisfactory so far as it went, but nurse would say no more, doubtless because she had nothing more to say. "I do believe, Rafe," said Alix, when they were sitting together after tea, "that the old garden is a sort of entrance to fairyland, and that it's been waiting for us to find it out." Her eyes were shining with eagerness, and Rafe, too, felt very excited. "I do hope mamma will let us have all to-morrow to ourselves," he said. "You see, one has to be very careful with fairies, Alix--all the stories agree about that. We must go to work very cautiously, so as not to offend them in any way."