"Excuse me," said the man, "but here's a little girl who has just come, and she says she's come to look for a forgotten story; can you tell her anything about it?"
The Queerbody gazed earnestly at Ellen. "A forgotten story!" she repeated slowly. "This is the place to come for forgotten stories, but it may be that it has been made into something else. How long is it since it was forgotten,—this story that you want?"
Ellen told her a long time; ever since her grandmother was a little girl.
The Queerbody shook her head. "I'm afraid it may have been made over," she said; "but there's no telling. There are some stories that have been here for many, many years; this one I was just beginning to use, for instance," and she held out her hands full of the shimmering stuff for Ellen to see.
"Why, is that a forgotten story?" asked Ellen. "I didn't know stories ever looked like that."
"This is only part of a story. When a story has been forgotten it is all divided up and put into different jars. Wondercluff we call it then. When we make a new story we take a handful from this and a handful from that, and when it's done you'd never know it was just old things pieced together. But what did your forgotten story look like? Can you tell me anything about it?"
Ellen could not tell her very much. "It was about a little princess called Goldenhair, and she had a wicked stepmother. The stepmother made her wear a sooty hood, but the fairies helped the princess. Then one time Goldenhair was combing her hair in the scullery and the stepmother came in and made her cut all her hair off; and I don't know the rest."
The Queerbody began to laugh. She held out the handful of wondercluff toward Ellen. "Why this is a part of that very story," she cried, "and you came just in time. A little later and it would have been made into something else. Wait a bit. See if I can't put it together."