TANGLEWOOD PORCH
AFTER THE STORY
‘Was not that a very fine story?’ asked Eustace.
‘Oh yes, yes!’ cried Cowslip, clapping her hands. ‘And those funny old women, with only one eye amongst them! I never heard of anything so strange.’
‘As to their one tooth, which they shifted about,’ observed Primrose, ‘there was nothing so very wonderful in that. I suppose it was a false tooth. But think of your turning Mercury into Quicksilver, and talking about his sister! You are too ridiculous!’
‘And was she not his sister?’ asked Eustace Bright. ‘If I had thought of it sooner, I would have described her as a maiden lady, who kept a pet owl!’
‘Well, at any rate,’ said Primrose, ‘your story seems to have driven away the mist.’
And, indeed, while the tale was going forward, the vapours had been quite exhaled from the landscape. A scene was now disclosed which the spectators might almost
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