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It was like a wonderful fairy-tale, to which Ida listened with clasped hands.

Presently another song came from the wood: it was a hymn sung by children’s voices, such as one often hears carolled by a troop of little urchins coming home from school. The words fell familiarly on Ida’s ears:

“Quite through the streets with silver sound,
The flood of life doth flow;
Upon whose banks on every side
The wood of life doth grow.

“Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
Continually are green;
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.

“There trees for evermore bear fruit,
And evermore do spring;
There evermore the Angels sit,
And evermore do sing.”

Here the little chorus broke off, and the children came pouring out of the wood with chattering and laughter. Only one lingered, playing under a tree, and finishing the song. The child’s voice rose shrill and clear like that of the blackbird above him. He also sang of Life–Eternal life–knowing little more than the bird of the meaning of his song, and having little less of that devotion of innocence in which happiness is praise.

But Ida had ceased to listen to the singing. Her whole attention was given to the children as they scampered past the hedge, dropping bits of moss and fungi and such like woodland spoil. For, tightly held in the grubby hands of each–plucked with reckless indifference to bud and stalk, and fading fast in their hot prisons–were primroses. Ida started to her feet, a sudden idea filling her brain. The birds were right, Spring had come, and there were flowers–flowers for Mrs. Overtheway.

Ida was a very quiet, obedient little girl, as a general rule; indeed, in her lonely life she had small temptation to pranks or mischief of any kind. She had often been sent to play in the back garden before, and had never thought of straying beyond its limits; but to-day a strong new feeling had been awakened by the sight of the primroses.

“The hole is very large,” said Ida, looking at the gap in the hedge; “if that dead root in the middle were pulled up, it would be wonderfully large.”

She pulled the root up, and, though wonderful is a strong term, the hole was certainly larger.

“It is big enough to put one’s head through,” said Ida, and, stooping down, she exemplified the truth of her observation.

“Where the head goes, the body will follow,” they say, and Ida’s little body was soon on the other side of the hedge; the adage says nothing about clothes, however, and part of Ida’s dress was left behind. It had caught on the stump as she scrambled through. But accidents will happen, and she was in the road, which was something.

“It is like going into the world to seek one’s fortune,” she thought; “thus Gerda went to look for little Kay, and so Joringel sought for the enchanted flower. One always comes to a wood.”

And into the wood she came. Dame Nature had laid down her new green carpets, and everything looked lovely; but, as has been before said, it certainly was damp. The little singer under the tree cared no more for this, however, than the blackbird above him.

“Will you tell me, please, where you got your primroses?” asked Ida.

The child made a quaint, half-military salute; and smiled.

“Yonder,” he said laconically, and, pointing up the wood, he went on with the song that he could not understand:

“Ah, my sweet home, Jerusalem,
Would God I were in thee!
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy joys that I might see!”

Ida went on and on, looking about her as she ran. Presently the wood sloped downwards, and pretty steeply, so that it was somewhat of a scramble; yet still she kept a sharp look-out, but no primroses did she see, except a few here and there upon the ground, which had been plucked too close to their poor heads to be held in anybody’s hands. These showed the way, however, and Ida picked them up in sheer pity and carried them with her.