Malvina confessed herself charmed with it. Nowhere had she ever met so many birds. Malvina raised her hand and they all three stood in silence, listening. The sky was ablaze and the air seemed filled with their music. The twins were sure that there were millions of them. They must have come from miles and miles and miles, to sing to Malvina. Also the people. They were so good and kind and round. Malvina for the present was staying with--accepting the protection, was how she put it, of the wise and learned Christopher. The "habitation" could be seen from where they stood, its chimneys peeping from among the trees. The twins exchanged a meaning glance. Had they not all along suspected the Professor! His black skull cap, and his big hooked nose, and the yellow-leaved, worm-eaten books--of magic: all doubts were now removed--that for hours he would sit poring over through owlish gold-rimmed spectacles! Victor's French was coming back to him. He was anxious to know if Malvina had ever met Sir Launcelot--"to talk to." A little cloud gathered upon Malvina's face. Yes, she had known them all: King Uthur and Igraine and Sir Ulfias of the Isles. Talked with them, walked with them in the fair lands of France. (It ought to have been England, but Malvina shook her head. Maybe they had travelled.) It was she who had saved Sir Tristram from the wiles of Morgan le Fay. "Though that, of course," explained Malvina, "was never known." The twins were curious why it should have been "of course," but did not like to interrupt again. There were others before and after. Most of them the twins had never heard of until they came to Charlemagne, beyond which Malvina's reminiscences appeared to fade. They had all of them been very courteous to her, and some of them indeed quite charming. But... One gathers they had never been to Malvina more than mere acquaintances, such as one passes the time with while waiting--and longing. "But you liked Sir Launcelot," urged Victor. He was wishful that Malvina should admire Sir Launcelot, feeling how much there was in common between that early lamented knight and himself. That little affair with Sir Bedivere. It was just how he would have behaved himself. Ah! yes, admitted Malvina. She had "liked" him. He was always so--so "excellent." "But he was not--none of them were my own people, my own dear companions." The little cloud had settled down again. It was Bruno who recalled the three of them to the period of contemporary history.