"There is one thing that seems strange to me," Molly went on presently. "And that is the way the ordinary and the magic things seem to all get mixed up together. I'm sure I shall be forgetting, when we get home again, and keep expecting spells and magic things to happen."
"So shall I," said Jack; and then, as Molly began to laugh--"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Oh, Jack," she laughed. "What would Aunt Phoebe say if she could see us now!"
"'I'm sure I don't know what the world's coming to,'" mimicked Jack, in an Aunt Phoebe voice, and then joined in Molly's laughter. "And the best of it is," he chuckled, "it's all through her giving you that birthday present. She _would_ be wild."
"I suppose we really ought not to laugh at her," laughed Molly. "It's hardly respectful--but, somehow, I can't just help it."
They continued to search, chatting and laughing, in a light-hearted, excited mood, and soon they had covered the best part of the First Green Lane. As they neared the end--a break in the hedge (on Jack's side) blocked by a white gate revealed a big field which lay behind the hedge.
"Hullo," said Jack. "Have we got to search this field, too, I wonder. Where's the map?"
Molly had it in her pocket, and produced it at once. Leaning against the gate the two children studied it carefully.
"Yes. See. Here it is ... marked here," said Molly. "The hedge on the left-hand side--the side I was searching--is the boundary; but the field this side is marked in our square."
"I tell you what then," suggested Jack. "I'll start on the field while you finish to the end of the lane--it's only a few yards more. Then you come back and start the other end of the field."
Molly agreed, so they separated for a few minutes and continued the search. But there was no sign of the Black Leaf anywhere in the big field or in the First Green Lane, and at length they started on the Second Green Lane.
The Second Green Lane had low hedges and many ferns and wild flowers growing by the way, and a ditch running along one side of it, which made the searching a little more difficult. There were also several gates leading from this lane into fields which had to be searched too. Some of the fields where the grass was long took a good time to do properly. But the two children stuck to it perseveringly, urged on by the hope that perhaps just round the corner, or behind the next tree, or even, perhaps, a few feet ahead of them among the long grass, grew that which they sought--the Black Leaf. But so far they had searched in vain.