Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/431

1905.] but she shut her eyes so that she might not see how high up she was, and held her wings rigid and began gracefully to float downward again.



By and by she opened her eyes and found one of her sleeves was just missing the sharp point of a hghtning-rod on a tower of the palace. So she began struggling and flopping anew, and, almost before she knew it, Aunt Rivette had descended to the roof of the royal stables. Here she sat down and began to weep and wail, while a great crowd gathered below and watched her.

“Get a ladder! Please get a ladder!" begged old Rivette. “If you don’t, I shall fall and break my neck.”

By this time Bud and Fluff had come out to see what caused the excitement; and, to their amazement, they found their old aunt perched on the stable roof, with two great wings growing from her back.

For a moment they could not understand what had happened. Then Margaret cried:

“Oh, Bud, I let her wear the magic cloak! She must have made a wish!”

“Help! Help! Get a ladder!” wailed the old woman, catching sight of her nephew and niece.

“Well, you are a bird, Aunt Rivette!” shouted Bud, gleefully, for he was in a teasing mood. “You don’t need a ladder! I don’t see why you can’t fly down the same way you flew up.” And all the people shouted: “Yes, yes! The king is right! Fly down!”

Just then Rivette’s feet began to slip an the sloping roof; so she made a wild struggle to save herself, and the result was that she fluttered her wings in just the right way to sink gradually to the ground.

“You ‘ll be all night as soon as you know how to use your wings,” said Bud, with a laugh. “But where did you get ‘em, anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” said Aunt Rivette, much relieved to be on earth again, and rather pleased to have attracted so much attention. “Are the wings pretty?”

“They are perfectly lovely!” cried Fluff, clapping her hands in glee. “Why, Aunt Rivette, I do believe you must be the only person in all the world who can fly!”

“But I think you look like an overgrown buzzard,” said Bud.

Now it happened that all this praise, and the wondering looks of the people, did a great deal