Birdie sighed, then retreated behind a screen. "You can open your eyes now, before you break something and I have to pay for it." Olo peaked furtively, then with relief sought a chair on the far side of the room.
"Look, Mistress Holly has gone off to attend some kind of 'moot' thing with Gandalf, Bethberry and those Rangers. I have no idea just where their little gathering is being held, and I don't want to know. But if she's in the company of Rangers, and that Gandalf - who seems to be everything that's said about him, and then some - then you have no cause to be worrying for her health. 'Safe as houses', they say, an expression I've never understood myself, but I think we can assume that nothing is going to happen to Holly today. As for tomorrow..." Birdie just shrugged. Did anyone really know about tomorrow?
"There!" she said, stepping out from behind the screen, How do I look?"
Olo said the usual complimentary phrases; having been raised with a passel of sisters, he knew them all. And he had to admit that the strange little woman did look a sight better than she had before. Birdie whirled with delight and said "I feel like I have a new skin!"
"A new what?" said Olo with amusement.
"Oh, never mind", said Birdie hastily. "Now if you can do one more thing for me, Olo: can you tell me if there is a walnut tree about?"
"A walnut tree? Whatever for?"
"Never mind. Just say that I intend to pay you back those 12 silver pennies. And I have a never-fail way of going about it."
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