But the beds made of beech-leaves are really no whit behind them in these qualities, whilst the fragrant smell of green tea, which the leaves retain, is most gratifying.  The objection to them is the slight crackling noise which the leaves occasion as the individual turns in bed, but this is no inconvenience at all; or if so in any degree, it is an inconvenience which is overbalanced by the advantages of this most luxurious couch.”

“But how funny,” said Malcolm, “to sleep on leaves!  That’s what the Babes in the Wood did.”

“No,” replied Clara, very earnestly, “they didn’t sleep on leaves, you know; but when they had laid down and gone to sleep, the robins came and covered them with leaves.”

“Yes,” chimed in little Edith; “I like that way best, because they’d be so cold in the woods.”

“And that really was the case,” said Miss Harson, after listening with a smile to this discussion, “although there were probably leaves on the ground for the children to lie upon.  A bed of leaves is not a bad thing where there are no mattresses, and such a bed is often used as a matter of course.  You will remember my reading to you about the beds which the Finland mothers make for their children of the leaves of the canoe-birch.  ‘Leafy beds’ are no strange thing—­not mere poetry.”

CHAPTER XV.

THE TENT AND THE LOCUSTS.

There came a bright balmy day in May when the children found a delightful surprise awaiting them.  The tent in the woods, which had been proposed on the day when birch-twigs were found to be eatable, was almost forgotten—­or if thought of, it was as a thing that could not possibly be—­when, on the day in question, Miss Harson took her charges out as usual, and led them to a very pretty cleared space with a fringe of rocks and trees all around it.  But on this spot, which hitherto had been quite bare, there now stood some sort of a little house different from other houses and quite pretty.

“It’s a tent!” exclaimed Malcolm.  “Who put it there, I should like to know, on our land?”

“Are there gypsies here, Miss Harson?” whispered Clara, rather fearfully.

But the young lady walked deliberately up to the entrance of the tent and invited her little flock to come inside.

“I know the gentleman who had it put here,” she said, “and he is quite willing that we should use it; but he will not give any one else this liberty.”

“I think I know him too,” said Malcolm as he walked in after Miss Harson.

“And I!”—­“And I!” exclaimed the little girls.  “It is our own papa.  How very kind of him!”

“Yes,” replied their governess; “he said, when I spoke of a tent, that it would be a good thing for the wood-ramblers to have a place of shelter when they were over-taken by a sudden shower, and also a place in which to rest comfortably when they were tired; and this pretty tent, you see, is all ready for us at any time.”