“What else?” in an interested voice.
“It is a long story; it is in blank verse, too, and you like rhymes.”
“I’ve been trying to say Mother Goose and Old Mother Hubbard.”
“I will tell you a story,” said Tessa, as wide awake as if the sun were shining. “I will rhyme it as I run along, and when I hesitate and can not make good sense and a perfect rhyme, we’ll go to sleep.”
“Well, but you must do your best.”
“I always do my best. I tell Gus and Dine stories in rhyme.”
So she began with a description of a little girl who was fair and a boy who was brave, who grew up and grew together, but cruel fate in the shape of a step-mother separated them, and he travelled all over the world, and she stayed at home and made tatting, until a hundred years went by and he came to the door a worn-out traveller and found her a withered maiden sitting alone feeding her cat. Afterward in trying to recall this, she only remembered one couplet:
“He was covered with snow, his hat with fur,
He took it off and bowed to her.”
Once or twice Sue gave a hysterical laugh.
The story was brought to a proper and blissful conclusion; still Sue was sleepless.