They spent a cheerful evening, and the following day, Sunday, passed peacefully. When they returned from the ancient church in the neighbouring village whither since their infancy they had always gone with their parents, Linde asked Aria to let her go for a stroll in the forest by herself, to which the elder sister, who was feeling a little tired, agreed. "You are going to look for a robin, I know," she said with a smile, "and possibly as the dreams have come to you and not to me, you may succeed where I could not. But don't go too far, dear child. I should be anxious if you were long away, for no doubt the forest _is_ rather uncanny, somehow." "I won't go far," said Linde. "And I hardly hope to find out anything. But I shall just look well about me. You see the real time has not yet come. We are not to 'ask the robin' till after three market-days." When she returned home an hour or two later, she seemed thoughtful, though not exactly depressed. "Well," asked her sister, "had you any adventures?" Linde shook her head, yet she smiled a little. "Only a very tiny thing happened to me," she said, "hardly worth noticing. I strolled some way along the path that leads straight to the heart of the forest--the main path, you know, Aria--and I was just thinking of turning home, when, a short way down a much smaller path, scarcely one at all, I caught sight of something bright lying on the ground. At first I thought it was a scarlet berry or two, or some of the red leaves one often sees, but when I stooped to pick it up, it was this," and she held out a small feather. Aria took it--it was of a peculiar shade, almost more orange than red. "I know what you are thinking," said the elder sister,--"that it is a robin's feather--from his red breast, and it certainly looks very like it, but----" "Wait, Aria, till you hear the rest," interrupted Linde, and she opened her other hand, in which lay two more of the fairy-like feathers, exactly similar to the first. "The wonderful part of it was that though they are _so_ tiny," and she glanced at the treasures tenderly, "and though it was not a bright day, there was no sunshine, they glowed and gleamed as if they were gems. I walked on a little way, you see, after I had picked up the one, and there, some yards ahead, lay the second, and the same with the third. But it was the last. I feel sure it was the last, though I went on some distance. And somehow, three seem the right number for a fairy message. It matches the three times in my dreams." "Then you do think they are a message?" asked Aria. "Of course I do. I marked the path well by breaking off twigs and making a little heap of pebbles. Indeed it was necessary, for I had never noticed before that there was a path there at all," and when she went on to describe its position Aria agreed with her that it seemed quite a new discovery.