Scarcely had the door closed after Margaret, when the goblin popped his fair head out of the chimney, and sprang into the room with a merry greeting. Then Maude would clap her hands with delight, for now began the pleasantest hour of the day. There was no end to the stories that Puck could tell for her entertainment. For hours together, while her nurse was away, the child sat motionless, with clasped hands, listening with bated breath to tales about days long gone by. For hundreds of years the little goblin had lived in the castle as an honoured member of the household, and his memory preserved more faithfully than the family chronicle the history of every individual of the long ancestral line. And before the astonished child the grave seemed opened, and the forefathers who had long since mingled with the dust all passed in the bloom of youth before her eyes. Then she would go to the ancestral hall, and standing before the pictures gaze at them, now in love, now in horror, for she knew the story connected with each one of the old portraits.
No one in the whole castle knew of the child's friendship with Puck. She was afraid that the servants might tease him if they knew of his presence, or perhaps drive him away, so she kept her secret carefully.
It was winter. The snow lay deep, the storm howled at night and whistled in the wide chimney, and the windows were covered with thick frost.
"Poor Puck," said Maude one evening, as the goblin came down the chimney, his teeth chattering with cold, "I cannot allow you to stay any longer up there. See, your hair is white with frost and snow, and you are trembling all over."
"Yes, yes," said the little fellow; "it is very cold."
"Look here, then," said the child, going to her dolls' corner, and drawing aside the curtain; "I have turned out the dollies. You shall have the big four-post bed, and in the day-time you can stay here too. I have set a little table and chair for you, so that you may have something like a little room till the summer comes."
So all winter long Puck crept at night into the warm, soft little bed, instead of springing back at Margaret's return up the cold dark chimney.
Spring came with its primroses and fleecy clouds, and then followed summer with its splendour of flowers in field and grove.
And now Maude and her nurse used to go out into the woods, to the child's intense delight. But one day Margaret found the sun too warm and the way too long for her lazy mood, and was easily persuaded to sit down and rest while Maude ran to gather wild strawberries.