Mirry had her mother's beautiful dark eyes, almost green in the light, and freckled with hazel, and her pale, sallow skin. Ella, younger and shyer, was more like her father. Her skin was not any darker than Sophie's, and her eyes blue-grey, her features delicate, her hair golden-brown that glinted in the sun.
Sophie often sang to them when she and Ella and Mirry were out like this. As she sat with them, dreaming in the sunshine, she sang almost without any conscious effort; she just put up her chin, and the melodies poured from her. Hearing her voice, as it ran in ripples and eddies through the clear, warm air, hung and quivered and danced again, delighted her.
Ella and Mirry listened in a trance of awe, reverence, and admiration. Sophie had a dim vision of them, wide-eyed and still, against the tall grass and flowers.
"My! You can sing, Sophie! Can't she, Ella?"
Ella nodded, gazing at Sophie with eyes of worshipping love.
"They say you're going away with your father ... and you're going to be a great singer, Sophie," Mirry said.
"Yes," Sophie murmured tranquilly, "I am."
A bevy of black and brown birds flashed past them, flew in a wide half-circle across the paddock, and alighted on a dead tree beyond the fence.
"Look, look!" Mirry started to her feet. "A happy family! I wonder, are the whole twelve there?"
She counted the birds, which were calling to each other with little shrill cries.
"They're all there!" she announced. "Twelve of them. Mother says in some parts they call them the twelve apostles. Sing again, Sophie," she begged.
Ella smiled at Sophie. Her lips parted as though she would like to have said that, too; but only her eyes entreated, and she went on putting her flowers together.
As she sang, Sophie watched a pair of butterflies, white with black lines and splashes of yellow and scarlet on their wings, hovering over the flowered field of the paddock. She was so lost in her singing and watching the butterflies, and the children were so intent listening to her, that they did not hear a horseman coming slowly towards them along the track. As he came up to them, Sophie's rippling notes broke and fell to earth. Ella saw him first, and was on her feet in an instant. Mirry and she, their wild instinct asserting itself, darted away and took cover behind the trunks of the nearest trees.