Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 3.djvu/174

 women, wee moss children, even moss grandfathers and mothers, as gray as the lichens from which they came. Delightful little folk they were, so lovely in face, so quaint in dress, so blithe and brisk in spirit, so wonderful and bewitching altogether that Marnie longed to call her mother, but did not, lest a word should frighten them away.

Presently she caught the sound of delicate noises, and, listening intently, she discovered that they were talking of her.

"Ha! ha! isn't this a fine pleasure-ground for us this rainy day!" cried one merry moss boy, as he paused to settle his pointed cap, after turning somersaults till he looked like a leaf blown about by the wind.

"Hush, Prance," whispered a pretty little moss girl, with a wreath of coral in her hair, "you will wake the child if you shout so loud, and then she will no longer see and hear us, which would be a pity; for we amuse her, as one may guess by the smile on her face."

Now that surprised Marnie very much, for she was sure she was wide awake, and would have said so, if she had not remembered that it was not polite to contradict.