I believe the girls have actually come to think that the scissors are enchanted." "Oh, Papa Jack, stop teasin'!" said the Little Colonel.

"You know we don't!" "If it is really settled that we are to go there to-morrow, I want to hear the story," said Cousin Carl.

"I make a practice of reading the history of a place before I visit it, so I'll have to know the story of the gate in order to take a proper interest in it." "Come into the parlour," said Mrs.Sherman rising.

"Betty will tell us." As she turned, she saw Fidelia looking after the girls with wistful eyes, and she read the longing and loneliness in her face.
"Wouldn't you like to come too, and hear the fairy tale with us ?" she asked, kindly holding out her hand.
A look of happy surprise came over Fidelia's face, and before she could stammer out her acceptance of the unlooked-for invitation, Mrs.Sherman drew her toward her and led her into the little circle in one corner of the parlour.
"Now, we are ready, Tusitala," said Mrs.Sherman, settling herself on the sofa, with Fidelia beside her.

Shaking back her brown curls, Betty began the fairy tale that Joyce's Cousin Kate had told one bleak November day, to make the homesick child forget that she was "a stranger in a strange land." "Once upon a time, in a far island of the sea, there lived a king with seven sons." Word for word as she had heard it, Betty told the adventures of the princes ("the three that were dark and the three that were fair"), and then of the middle son, Prince Ethelried, to whom the old king gave no portion of his kingdom.