g-room of the castle--'"

"Who's Emmeline?" asked Muffie.

"Oh, how stupid you are," cried Pauline; "she's the daughter, of
course,--'sitting in the spachius drawing-room of the castle her father
strode in, and he led by the hand a very horty lady. "This is your new
mother and I command you to obey her, my lady Emmeline," he said.
Emmeline fainted to the ground.

"'Her father the noble lord was always out at his office and didn't know
how the horty step-mother treated Emmeline, but she grew thinner and
paler every day, and all her face went transparant and the blue veins
were trased in their pallor and her little hand was like a
skellington's; and the cruel step-mother made her do all the scrubbing
and hard work, and treated her like a menient. And one day the Lady
Emmeline disappeared and was never found again. But twenty years
afterwards the wainscotching in the castle was being mended, and they
found her lying behind it, her long eyelashes resting on the marble
pallor of her cheeks, her little hands clasped in their last long
sleep, quite dead. And the noble lord wept bitterly and resolved never
to have another step-mother, and he built a monyment with a white angel
to her memory'."

Lynn was quite moved by the story, and gulped down a sob which made Paul
most gracious and grateful to her.

But Muffie sniffed. "Well, she was a silly," she said. "Why didn't she
bang and kick on the wall like the time I hid in the cupboard and the
door got shut? Every one heard me in a minute."

"Wainscotching's much thicker than common cupboards," said Paul
disdainfully.

"I'd have got my axe and chopped and chopped and walked light out and
chopped off the woman's head and put her down my hole," said Max.

Then it was Lynn's turn.

She dictated rapidly, occasionally waving her arms dramatically to
heighten the effect.

"'A key lay on the ground. The moon was up. Purple was on the mountains,
and all in the valley lay the snow-white mist. Black pine trees stood in
a long, long row, like the ghosts of tall soldiers. The sun was setting,
and orange and purple flamed in the sky. The moon was very young and
thin and was just climbing up the other side of the sky. The sun----'"

"Oh, I say," said Pauline, "isn't anything ever going to happen? I'm
tired of the sun and the moon. I always skip that kind of thing in
books."

"Oh, Paul!" said Lynn, "that's the best part. You can make such lovely
pictures."

"Go on," said Paul.