Chapter XXVI: Conclusion (3)

When they came back to their senses, they found themselves lying on a bed of soft moss. The storm was over, the sun was shining bright and kindly, and the raindrops were hanging on the glittering bushes and trees like sparkling jewels. The children were much surprised to find that their clothes were quite dry, and that they felt no trace of either cold or wet. "Ah!" cried Felix, stretching his arms to the sky; "the Stranger Child must have protected us." And then they both called out so loud that the wood re-echoed: "Ah, thou darling child, do but come to us again! We do so long for you; we cannot live without you!" And it seemed, too, as though a bright beam of light came darting through the trees, making the flowers lift up their heads as it touched them. But though the children called upon their playfellow yet more movingly, nothing made itself seen. They crept home in silence and sadness. But their parents were very glad to see them, having been exceedingly anxious about them during the storm. The baron said, "It is a good thing that you are home again; for I confess I was afraid that Tutor Ink was still hanging about somewhere in the wood, and on your track."

Felix related all that had happened in the wood. "That is all stupid nonsense," their mother said. "If you are to go dreaming all that sort of stuff in the wood, you shan't be allowed to go there any more. You'll have to stop at home." And indeed--although, when they begged that they might be allowed to go back there, their mother yielded--it so came about that they didn't care very much about doing it. Alas! the Stranger Child was never there; and whenever they got far into the wood, or reached the bank of the pond, they were jeered at by the harper, the sportsman, and the doll, who cried to them, "Stupid things! Senseless creatures! You must do without playthings. You didn't know how to treat us clever, cultivated people--stupid things, senseless creatures that you are!"

This being unendurable, the children preferred staying at home.