I have read it twenty times, I am sure, and told it to Davy until he almost knows it by heart." "I wish you would tell it to Lloyd, please.

She has never heard it, and I want to illustrate it for her after awhile." The little girl willingly dropped down into a big chair full of cushions, and with her finger still marking the place in the book, Betty began the story: "Once upon a time, near a castle in a lonely wood, there lived an orphan maiden named Olga.

She would have been all alone in the world had it not been for an old woman who befriended her.

This woman was an old flax-spinner, and lived in a humble thatched cottage near the castle.
She had taken pity on Olga when the little orphan was a helpless baby, and so kind had she always been that Olga had grown to maidenhood without feeling the lack of father, mother, brother, or sister.

In all ways the old flax spinner had taken their places.
"Every morning Olga carried water from the spring, gathered the wild fruits of the woods, and spread the linen on the grass to bleach.