ss?" said the Wolf, as he walked
beside her.

"Oh, Grannie isn't very well, and mother cannot leave the
cheese-making this morning, and so I'm taking her some little dainties
in my basket, and I am to see how she is, and tell mother when I get
back," said the child with a smile.

"And," said the wolf, "where does your good Grannie live, little
lady?"

"Through the copse, and down the hollow, and over the bridge, and
three meadows after the mill."

"Does she indeed?" cried he. "Why, then, I do believe she is a very
dear old friend of mine, whom I have not seen for years and years.
Now, I'll tell you what we'll do, you and I: I will go by this way,
and you shall take that, and whoever gets there first shall be the
winner of the game."

So the Wolf trotted off one way, and Red Riding-Hood went the other;
and I am sorry to say that she lingered and loitered more than she
ought to have done on the road.

Well, what with one thing and another, the sun was right up in the
very mid-most middle of the sky when she crossed the last meadow from
the mill and came in sight of her grandmother's cottage, and the big
lilac-bushes that grew by the garden gate.

"Oh! dear, how I must have lingered!" said the child, when she saw
how high the sun had climbed since she set out on her journey; and,
pattering up the garden-path, she tapped at the cottage door.

"Who's there?" said a very gruff kind of voice from inside.

"It's only I, Grannie dear, your little Red Riding-Hood with some
goodies for you in my basket, answered the child.

"Then pull the bobbin," cried the voice, "and the latch will go up."

"What a dreadful cold poor Grannie must have, to be sure, to make her
so hoarse," thought the child. Then she pulled the bobbin, and the
latch went up, and Red Riding-Hood pushed open the door, and stepped
inside the cottage.

It seemed very dark in there after the bright sunlight outside, and
all Red Riding-Hood could see was that the window-curtains and the
bed-curtains were still drawn, and her grandmother seemed to be lying
in bed with the bed-clothes pulled almost over her head, and her great
white-frilled nightcap nearly hiding her face.

Now, you and I have guessed by this time, although poor Red
Riding-Hood never even thought of such a thing, that it was not her
Grannie at all, but the wicked Wolf, who had hurried to the cottage
and put on Grannie's nightcap and popped into her bed, to pretend that
he was Grannie her