"May I listen to the fairy story also?" asked Walter.
Miss Walton looked up with a smile and said, "You must be half-desperate from your imprisonment to accept of such solace. But if you can wait till I have kept my word to the children I will read something more to your taste."
"I think I should like to hear how a fairy story sounds once again after all these years."
"As Shakespeare may sound to us some time in the future," she replied, smiling.
"I can't believe we shall ever outgrow Shakespeare," he said.
"I can believe it, but cannot understand how it is possible. As yet I am only growing up to Shakespeare."
"You seem very ready to believe what you cannot understand."
"And that is woman's way, I suppose you would like to add," she answered, smiling over her shoulder, as she turned to the kitchen department. "You men have a general faith that there will be dinner at two o'clock, though you understand very little how it comes to pass, and if you are disappointed the best of your sex have not fortitude enough to wait patiently, so I must delay no longer to propitiate the kitchen divinity."
"There!" he said, "I have but crossed her steps in the hall, and she has stirred me and set my nerves tingling like an October breeze. She is a witch."
After a few minutes Miss Walton entered. Each of the children called for a story, and both clamored for their favorites.