Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/149

 "With a red candle, and there was a little girl who—didn't have any doll"

Pussy threw herself on him bodily. "Is it true? Is it true?" she shrieked.

Milly, a little flushed and excited by the story, tried to say sedately: "Of course it isn't true. It couldn't be—true"

"Let's wish it to be true—" Ostrander said, "all three of us, with our eyes shut"

With this ceremony completed the little girls were advised gravely to go to bed. "If Fluffy Ruffles and old St. Nick come by and find you up they won't stop"

"Won't they?"

"Of course not. You must shut the door and creep under your quilt and cover up your head, and if you hear a noise you mustn't look."

Milly eyed him dubiously. "I think it is a shame to tell Pussy such"

"Corking things?" He lifted her chin with a light finger and looked into her innocent eyes. "Oh, Milly, Milly, once upon a time there was a Princess, with eyes like yours, and she lived in a garden where black swans swam on a pool, and she wore pale-green gowns and there were poppies in the garden. And a Fool loved her. But she shut him out of the garden. He wasn't good enough even to kneel at her feet, so she shut him out and 143