It was so beautiful to walk along in shade of the trees, where above in their tops the wind rustled so delightfully and all the birds sang in confusion.

She also had to consider how she would arrange her calls, whether she would go first to Kaetheli or to Marianne; but this time old Marianne had a stronger attraction than Kaetheli and Sally felt that she must go there first and give her message.

Now her thoughts fell on the strange people and she had to imagine how they looked and what she was going to say, and what they would say when she knocked and asked for Marianne.

Thus she thought everything well out, for Sally had a great power of imagining things.
In this way she came to the first houses of Middle Lot.

She turned away from the road and went toward Marianne's house, which stood a little way from the road and lay almost hidden behind a hedge.