Uncle Blair was spending the summer in Switzerland; and the letter the Story Girl read to us, among the fair, frail White Ladies of the Walk, where the west wind came now with a sigh, and again with a rush, and then brushed our faces as softly as the down of a thistle, was full of the glamour of mountain-rimmed lakes, and purple chalets, and “snowy summits old in story.” We climbed Mount Blanc, saw the Jungfrau soaring into cloudland, and walked among the gloomy pillars of Bonnivard’s prison. Finally, the Story Girl told us the tale of the Prisoner of Chillon, in words that were Byron’s, but in a voice that was all her own.
“It must be splendid to go to Europe,” sighed Cecily longingly.
“I am going some day,” said the Story Girl airily.
We looked at her with a slightly incredulous awe. To us, in those years, Europe seemed almost as remote and unreachable as the moon. It was hard to believe that one of US should ever go there. But Aunt Julia had gone—and SHE had been brought up in Carlisle on this very farm. So it was possible that the Story Girl might go too.
“What will you do there?” asked Peter practically.
“I shall learn how to tell stories to all the world,” said the Story Girl dreamily.
It was a lovely, golden-brown evening; the orchard, and the farm-lands beyond, were full of ruby lights and kissing shadows. Over in the east, above the Awkward Man’s house, the Wedding Veil of the Proud Princess floated across the sky, presently turning as rosy as if bedewed with her heart’s blood. We sat there and talked until the first star lighted a white taper over the beech hill.
Then I remembered that I had forgotten to take my dose of magic seed, and I hastened to do it, although I was beginning to lose faith in it. I had not grown a single bit, by the merciless testimony of the hall door.
I took the box of seed out of my trunk in the twilit room and swallowed the decreed pinch. As I did so, Dan’s voice rang out behind me.
“Beverley King, what have you got there?”