"Who, for instance?" Clare was curious; it was the first she had heard of Louise with friends of her own.
"Well—Elizabeth Bennett, and the Little Women, and Garm, and Amadis of Gaul——"
"Oh—not real people?" Clare was amused at herself for being relieved.
"Oh, but Miss Hartill—they are real." Louise was indignant. "Ever so much more than—oh, most people! Look at Mrs. Bennett and Mamma! Nobody will think of Mamma in a hundred years—but who'd ever forget Mrs. Bennett?"
"Mrs Bennett in the Garden of the Hesperides, Louise?" Clare began to chuckle. "I can't swallow that."
Louise pealed with laughter.
"You should have seen her the other day, with the dragon after her. She'd been trying to sneak some apples, because Bingley was coming to tea."
"Who came to the rescue?"
"Oh, I did." Louise was revelling in her sympathetic listener. "I have to keep order, you know. She was awfully blown, though. Siegfried helped me."
"I wish I could get to fairyland as easily as you do."