"It's only I, Grannie dear, your little Red Riding-Hood with some goodies for you in my basket, answered the child.
"Then pull the bobbin," cried the voice, "and the latch will go up."
"What a dreadful cold poor Grannie must have, to be sure, to make her so hoarse," thought the child. Then she pulled the [page 143] bobbin, and the latch went up, and Red Riding-Hood pushed open the door, and stepped inside the cottage.
It seemed very dark in there after the bright sunlight outside, and all Red Riding-Hood could see was that the window-curtains and the bed-curtains were still drawn, and her grandmother seemed to be lying in bed with the bed-clothes pulled almost over her head, and her great white-frilled nightcap nearly hiding her face.
Now, you and I have guessed by this time, although poor Red Riding-Hood never even thought of such a thing, that it was not her Grannie at all, but the wicked Wolf, who had hurried to the cottage and put on Grannie's nightcap and popped into her bed, to pretend that he was Grannie herself.
And where was Grannie all this time, you will say? Well, we shall see presently.
"Come and sit down beside my bed, dearie," wheezed the Wolf, "and let us have a little chat." Then the Wolf stretched out his large hairy paws and began to unfasten the basket.
"Oh!" said Red Riding-Hood, "what great arms you have, Grannie!"
"All the better to hug you with," said the Wolf.
"And what great rough ears you have, Grannie!"