“No,” said Rafe thoughtfully; “I suppose not.”
“Draw the two little stools close beside me—one at the right, one at the left; and if you like, you may lean your heads on my knee, you’ll hear none the worse.”
“Oh, that’s beautiful,” said Alix; “it’s like the children and the white lady. Do you know about the white lady?” she went on, starting up suddenly.
Mrs Caretaker nodded. “Oh yes,” she said; “she’s a relation of mine. But we mustn’t chatter any more if you’re to have a story.”
And the children sat quite silent. Click, click, went the knitting-needles.
The Story of the Three Wishes.
That was the name of the first of Mrs Caretaker’s stories.
Once upon a time there lived two sisters in a cottage on the edge of a forest. It was rather a lonely place in some ways, though there was an old town not more than a mile off, where there were plenty of friendly people. But it was lonely in this way, that but seldom any of the townsfolk passed near the cottage, or cared to come to see the sisters, even though they were good and pretty girls, much esteemed by all who knew them.
For the forest had a bad name. Nobody seemed to know exactly why, or what the bad name meant, but there it was. Even in the bright long summer days the children of the town would walk twice as far on the other side to gather posies of the pretty wood-flowers in a little copse, not to be compared with the forest for beauty, rather than venture within its shade. And the young men and maidens of a summer evening, though occasionally they might come to its outskirts in their strolls, were never tempted to do more than stand for a moment or two glancing along its leafy glades. Only the sisters, Arminel and Chloe, had sometimes entered the forest, though but for a little way, and not without some fear and trembling.