efore."

"Just so," said Robin gravely. "Go on."

"Well, one day," continued the narratress's voice through the
curtains--I knew the story by heart, so I was able to fill up the gaps
for myself when she dropped to a confidential whisper--"one cold, windy,
berleak day, the old wolves said to the young ones, 'How about a meal of
meat?' and all the young one's said, 'Oh, _let's_!'

"That very morning," continued Phillis in the impressive bass which she
reserves for the most exciting parts of her narrative, "that _very_
morning the foolish young horse said to the old horses, 'Who is for a
scamper to-day?' Then he began to wiggle and wiggle at his halter. The
old horses said, 'There is wolves outside, and our master says that they
eat all sheep an' cattle an' horses,' But the young horse just wiggled
and wiggled,"--I could hear my daughter suiting the action to the word
upon her audience's knee,--"and pwesently his halter was off! Then out
he rushed, kicking up the nimble snow with his feathery heels,
and--what?"

Robin, who was automatically murmuring something about transferred
epithets, apologised for this pedantic lapse, and the tale proceeded.

"Well, just as he was goin' to have one more scamper, he felt a growl--a
awful, fearful, deep _growl_,"--Phillis's voice sank to a bloodcurdling
and continuous gurgle--"and he terrembled, like this! I'll show you----"

She slipped off Robin's knee, and I knew that she was now on the
hearth-rug, simulating acute palsy for his benefit.

"Then he felt somefing on his back, then somefing further up his back,
then a bite at his neck; and then he felt his head bitten off, and he
died. Now you tell me one."

"Which?"

Phillis considered.

"The one about the Kelpie and the Wee Bit Lassie."

Robin obliged. At first he stumbled a little, and had to be prompted in
hoarse whispers by Phillis (who apparently had heard the story several
times before); but as the narrative progressed and the adventures of the
wee bit lassie grew more enthralling and the Kelpie more terrifying, he
became almost as immersed as his audience. When I peeped through the
curtain they were both sitting on the hearth-rug pressed close together,
Phillis gripping one of Robin's enormous hands in a pleasurable
condition of terrified interest. The fair copy of the "Importation of
Mad Dogs Bill," I regret to say, lay on the floor under the table. I
retired to my arm-chair.

"The Kelpie," Robin continued, "came