“Well, honey,” replied the dame, “there are currants to pick, if you like such work as that.  I am going to make jelly to-morrow; and if you like to begin the picking, I will come and help you when my bread is out of the oven.”

Gladly Hilda flew up to her room for the broad-leaved hat with the daisy-wreath; and then, taking the wide, shallow basket which Dame Hartley handed her, she fairly danced out of the door, over the bit of green, and into the garden.

Ah! the sweet, heartsome country garden that this was,—­the very thought of it is a rest and a pleasure.  Straight down the middle ran a little gravel path, with a border of fragrant clove-pinks on either side, planted so close together that one saw only the masses of pale pink blossoms resting on their bed of slender silvery leaves.  And over the border!  Oh the wealth of flowers, the blaze of crimson and purple and gold, the bells that swung, the spires that sprang heavenward, the clusters that nodded and whispered together in the morning breeze!  Here were ranks upon ranks of silver lilies, drawn up in military fashion, and marshalled by clumps of splendid tiger-lilies,—­the drum-majors of the flower-garden.  Here were roses of every sort, blushing and paling, glowing in gold and mantling in crimson.  And the carnations showed their delicate fringes, and the geraniums blazed, and the heliotrope languished, and the “Puritan pansies” lifted their sweet faces and looked gravely about, as if reproving the other flowers for their frivolity; while shy Mignonette, thinking herself well hidden behind her green leaves, still made her presence known by the exquisite perfume which all her gay sisters would have been glad to borrow.

Over all went the sunbeams, rollicking and playing; and through all went Hildegarde, her heart filled with a new delight, feeling as if she had never lived before.  She talked to the flowers.  She bent and kissed the damask rose, which was too beautiful to pluck.  She put her cheek against a lily’s satin-silver petals, and started when an angry bee flew out and buzzed against her nose.  But where were the currant-bushes?  Ah! there they were,—­a row of stout green bushes, forming a hedge at the bottom of the garden.

Hilda fell busily to work, filling her basket with the fine, ruddy clusters.  “How beautiful they are!” she thought, holding up a bunch so that the sunlight shone through it.  “And these pale, pinky golden ones, which show all the delicate veins inside.  Really, I must eat this fat bunch; they are like fairy grapes!  The butler fay comes and picks a cluster every evening, and carries it on a lily-leaf platter to the queen as she sits supping on honey-cakes and dew under the damask rose-bush.”

While fingers and fancy were thus busily employed, Hilda was startled by the sound of a voice which seemed to come from beyond the currant-bushes, very near her.  She stood quite still and listened.