These tales had enchanted Lucy, though Charlie cared little for them—he preferred to hear of kites and other Chinese games. But Lucy seemed to catch their spirit. And in the evening, when Sky-High sat with them under the trees or in the balconies, she often said, "Now tell us a Jataka story!"
But one night she had said instead, "Now let me tell you a Jataka story!"
The idea that Lucy had a Jataka story seemed to greatly amuse Sky-High. But the tale itself set his black eyes shining and blinking. This had been Lucy's tale:
"Sky-High, I dreamed that you were a wang and had lived in a palace."
To-day she sat a long time in the arbor to compose the tale she would tell in the evening when they would be on the veranda, with Sky-High on the stair at their feet.
So in the evening she said, "I have composed another Jataka story. Would you like to hear it, mother? Would you, Sky-High?"