Aria and Linde smiled and thanked her. And the thanks were repeated, when, as she turned away, she called out, "I'll be the first to tell my cronies of this. Dear, dear, I feel as if I were in a fairy garden myself with the pleasure of the perfume. I had no idea that the robins' forest had such treasures of roses. For you live in the forest, do you not, or close by?" "Yes, just at its edge," they replied, "but," Linde went on eagerly, "we never knew it was called after the robins. It is odd that we never heard it." Dame Barbara nodded sagaciously. "'Tis a very old name. Scarce a one but myself knows of it, nowadays," she said. "No wonder you children never heard it. There was an ancient story--just a foolish tale--that the fairies haunted the forest, till one day some cruel or stupid person killed a robin. Robins used to abound there, and they are their special favourites, you know, and since then never a fairy or a robin has been seen there. But I must hurry off to finish my marketing." Aria and Linde looked at each other. "It must mean something," said Linde in a low and almost awe-struck tone. "My dream, I mean, and the old woman saying, 'Ask the robin.'" "Yes," her sister agreed. "It is odd too that we never heard the old name or the old story before. I wonder if father had? I have a sort of remembrance of his once saying something about our being too near the forest for robins to make their home with us, but I had a silly childish idea that he only meant that all robins disliked forests." "I think I must have had the same notion," said Linde, "for we have both of us now and then wished that robins would make their nests in our garden, but we just thought they never would! We have hardly ever seen one." "Very seldom," said Aria. "I have occasionally noticed a redbreast on the hedge, seeming to look about him, but he was sure to fly away." But though they felt extremely interested in what they had heard and very curious to find out if, as Linde said, her dream did "mean something," just then they had no time to talk about it any more, for Dame Barbara was as good as her word. Every one of their usual customers for flowers seemed to have met the old woman and been told of the wonderful dried leaves. And some strangers, too, new-comers or visitors to the little town, stopped as they passed by, with exclamations of "What a delicious fragrance! Can it be from these flowers?" and when it was explained to them that the source of the perfume was the contents of the tin canister, one and all immediately bought a cup-full, or two, even in some cases three or four. Long before their usual hour for going home, all the leaves were sold, and some would-be purchasers who came too late were delighted to hear that next market-day there would be a fresh supply of the coveted leaves.