Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/147



HEN the mood takes my friend Annabel Lee she will, if I beg her, tell me quaint and fantastic stories, such as are hidden away in the dusty crevices of this world. These tales have lain away there for centuries, and spiders have spun webs over and about them, so that when, perchance, they are brought out, bits of fine gray fiber are to be found among the lines.

Yesterday a pretty, plain story by my friend Annabel Lee that runs through my mind.

"Long ago," said my friend Annabel Lee, "there lived in Egypt a family of well-born but poorly-bred Spoon-bills in a green marsh by the side of the great