As soon as Dickory had left off his cocked hat and his gold-embroidered coat, the little girl Lena had ceased to be afraid of him, and the next morning she came to him, seated lonely--for this was a busy household--and asked him if he would like to take a walk. So, hand in hand, they wandered away. Presently they entered a path which led through the woods.
"This is the way my sister goes to her lookout tree," said the little girl. "Would you like to see that tree?"
"Oh, yes!" said Dickory, and he spoke the truth.
"She goes up to the very top," said Lena, "to look for ships. I would never do that; I'd rather never see a ship than to climb to the top of such a tree. I'll show it to you in a minute; we're almost there."
At a little distance from the rest of the forest and upon a bluff which overlooked a stretch of lowland, and beyond that the bay, stood a tall tree with spreading branches and heavy foliage.
"Up in the top of that is where she sits," said the child, "and spies out for ships. That's what she's doing now. Don't you see her up there?"
"Your sister in the tree!" exclaimed Dickory. And his first impulse was to retire, for it had been made quite plain to him that he was not expected to present himself to the young lady of the house, should she be on the ground or in the air. But he did not retire. A voice came to him from the tree-top, and as he looked upward he saw the same bright face which had greeted him over the top of the bushes. Below it was a great bunch of heavy leaves.
"So you have come to call on me, have you?" said the lady in the tree.
"I am glad to see you, but I'm sorry that I cannot ask you to come upstairs. I am not receiving."
"He could not come up if he wanted to," said Lena; "he couldn't climb a tree like that."
"And he doesn't want to," cried the nymph of the bay-tree. "I have been up here all the morning," said she, "looking for ships, but not one have I seen."
"Isn't that a tiresome occupation?" asked Dickory.
"Not altogether," she said. "The branches up here make a very nice seat, and I nearly always bring a book with me. You will wonder how we get books, but we had a few with us when we were marooned, and since that my father has always asked for books when he has an opportunity of trading off his hides. But I have read them all over and over again, and if it were not for the ships which I expect to come here and anchor, I am afraid I should grow melancholy."