The roots that served them instead of bread every day, and which were cooked by placing them for a short time in the hot ashes, they also collected and stored.

So when the harvest was all over, Tom told Frank and his sisters that they needn't be afraid to spend their Christmas in this beautiful island.
"Oh, but, Tom," said Pansy, "we'll all be home long, long before Christmas, won't we ?" Poor child! She was beginning to long for her mother's cosy cottage on the cliff, and for the fires that in the long winter evenings always burned so brightly in the parlour grate.
"Now, about light for the long Arctic winter night, which will soon be here ?" This was the question that Tom put to Frank just after sunset one beautiful evening as the snow on the tops of the highest mountains was changed to a rose tint in the sun's parting rays.
"It is a very serious question, you know," he added.
"Very serious," said Pansy, who heard him, shaking her wise, wee head.
Sitting by the camp fire there, with its lights and shadows chasing each other over her face and through her sunny hair, Pansy looked a very beautiful child indeed.
For some time they had all been sitting round the fire, watching the curling smoke and the dancing flames, everyone intent on his or her own thoughts.

Aralia had been wondering what they were all doing at home, and if her father and mother were anxious about her and Pansy.

It was such a long, long time--hundreds of years it seemed--since they had sailed away; so many strange things had happened since that day.

Pansy was a little maiden who took the world very easily, and enjoyed each day and hour as it passed.