She nodded, seriously.
"Yes," she said. "Go on."
"Now in the part of the country—it was called the Land of the Great
Unrest—there lived a gnome who was a friend of the prince and princess.
Do you know what a gnome is?"
Little brows were bent deep in mental flagellation. Then, at length, very eruditely, she ventured:
"No'm is when you say no to a lady, isn't it?"
He laughed, a little; then, seriously:
"That's a different kind of a gnome. The kind of a gnome I mean is a fat man, with long, thin legs and a big, round body and a funny face."
"Oh, now I know!" she cried. "There's a picture of one in the book that you gave me for my birthday. Only this one had whiskers and a funny cap— like a cornucopia."
He nodded.
"That's the fellow," he agreed. "That's the kind I mean—only all of them don't have whiskers; and some of them wear yachting caps, or panamas, or most anything…. Well, the prince and the princess loved one another, and they got married."