Page:Stevenson - Fables (1896).djvu/102

88  and looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor heard speech of anyone, but thought upon the thought of the morrow. And her nurse fed her in silence, and she took of the food with her left hand and ate it without grace. Now when the nine years were out, it fell dusk in the autumn, and there came a sound in the wind like a sound of piping. At that the nurse lifted up her finger in the vaulted house.

"I hear a sound in the wind," said she, "that is like the sound of piping."

"It is but a little sound," said the King's daughter, "but yet is it sound enough for me."

So they went down in the dusk to the doors of the house, and along the beach of the sea. And the waves beat upon the one hand, and upon the other the dead leaves ran; and the clouds raced in the sky, and the gulls flew widdershins. And when they came to that part of the beach where strange things had been done in the ancient ages, lo, there was the crone, and she was dancing.

"What makes you dance widdershins, old crone?" said the King's daughter, "here