“It wasn’t,” said Lynn angrily,—“rat-poison indeed,—it was like burning gold.”
[p166]
“Go on,” said Pauline wearily.
“‘Su’nnly out of a snow-white lily stepped a beautious fairy. She had——’”
Scratch, scratch went Pauline’s pen over a couple of pages; the fairy’s eyes were described and likened to stars and other shining things; her ears, her teeth, her neck, her arms and hands were all lingeringly and lovingly enumerated and described.
Max went back disgustedly to his digging for fire.
Muffie nearly fell asleep, Pauline’s hand grew cramped, and still the fairy continued to “have” things.
“‘Her dress was of silver spider’s silk studded all over with dewdrops’,” went on Lynn, beginning now energetically upon every detail of the wardrobe of the “beautious” being.
And Pauline bore even with this, though she heaved a huge sigh of relief when from crown to shoes the entire toilette of the fairy had been dealt with.
But Lynn held her, like the ancient mariner, with a glittering eye.
“‘She was followed by six handmaidens’,” she said, “‘and the first one had——’”