Netherby Gomme coughed:
“Have you ever heard the ballad of The Lady of Shalott, Betty?” he asked.
The child shook her dainty head.
“Sit down in a cosy chair and I’ll read it to you,” he said. And he set his armchair for her, seating himself by his lamp.
He took up a battered, dog-eared volume of Tennyson and read the immortal ballad, and Betty, to the haunting music of the verse, strayed into the meads by Camelot, and, lingering by the river’s brink, she listened with the awed reapers amongst the bearded barley, watching the heavy barges glide by until there came wending past that most tragic barge of all that floated down to the hushed death-song of the broken-hearted faery Lady of Shalott.
Netherby Gomme closed the book gently, and watched the child.
Her eyes were full of tears:
“But—but why did she die?” she asked eagerly.
“She loved what could not give her love,” he said.
The child nodded her head: