To this Bedelia promptly responded before Sally had time to answer, “Snow storms, hail storms, rain storms, thunder storms and brain storms!”
“We have thunder storms here, too, but never any rain,” replied the Weather Prophet.
She was very pretty, and confided to Sally that she was the Wizard’s wife, but that as she had to remain where her draperies could be influenced by the weather, she seldom went to the tower.
“Besides which, I cannot abide his horrid gargoyles,” she added, with a contemptuous sniff.
Sally remembered how stuffy the big hall in the tower had been and did not at all blame the pretty doll for preferring her own bright and airy glass house with its many ventilators and the gay, striped awnings that could be spread out when the sun was too glaring.
As the neat, gold paper watch that the Weather Prophet wore at her belt now pointed to the hour of nine and Sally was beginning to look tired, they all took leave of their charming hostess and wended their way back to the palace, where the Queen with an affectionate kiss dismissed Sally that she might seek the rest that she so greatly needed.
“What on earth would nurse think if she could see us going to bed at ten o’clock?” exclaimed the child, as she cuddled close up to Bedelia, already half asleep on the dainty linen pillow.
“What would she think if she could see any of it, especially the gargoyles?” returned the little bear sleepily.
Sally burst out laughing, remembering nurse’s dismay at sight of one small mouse. But before her merry laugh had ceased to echo through the room, her eyelids fell drowsily. She was fast asleep.
They slept long and soundly, and were at last awakened by the scraping of shovels and the sound of carts and horses in the street below. Quickly Sally sprang out of bed, followed by Bedelia, who fell all over herself and very nearly upset Sally in her anxiety to get to the window.