Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/46

34 to the enemy. They could not help regarding as an enemy anyone who might come between them and their fortress. So when they went to the barn they first reconnoitred carefully, and then were particular about mounting at different points: When they took the ladder they noticed particularly the position it occupied, and always returned it to exactly the same place and arranged it at the same angle. But it was not always possible to follow these precautions when they were in the mood to desire to retire to seclusion. And in these days they had so much to talk about that the mood was upon them even more frequently than it had ever been.

They had an absorbing topic of conversation. A new and wonderful thing, better than their old books, even better than the stories Meg made, when she lay on the straw, her elbows supporting her, her cheeks on her hands, and her black-lashed grey eyes staring into space. Hers were always good stories, full of palaces and knights and robber-chiefs and fairies, but this new thing had the thrill of being a fairy story which was real—so real that one could read about it in the newspapers, and everybody was talking about it, even Aunt Matilda, her neighbours, and the work hands on the farm. To the two lonely children in their high nest in the straw stack it seemed a