gwell. "We haven't quite got
up to those sort of books yet."

"Anyway you can read the author's name upon the back of each of them."

The children nodded.

"That's me," confessed the stranger. "I have the misfortune to write
books that you don't read."

"Father does," Ridgwell hastened to explain; "I've often heard him talk
about you. Why, you're quite famous, aren't you?"

"I hope not," said the Writer.

"Anyway," concluded Ridgwell, "Father said you wrote jolly good stuff,
only it was over the heads of the people, but Father said one of these
days when you woke up, you would knock 'em, and I've heard him say that
anyway it was better than some of the drivel a lot of people wrote
nowadays. He hoped you'd reform, though."

The Writer laughed. "A very candid opinion, Master Ridgwell, and I
really must reform and mend my ways."

"Don't you write fairy tales as well?" inquired Christine upon the way
back to the dining-room.

"Sometimes," agreed the Writer.

Without more ado, Christine drew three chairs invitingly round the
fire, almost by way of an invitation to recount some upon the spot.

The fire was really very cheerful in spite of the fact that it was late
spring. The daffodils nodded their yellow heads quite contentedly, and
filled the bowls upon mantelshelf and table with colour, and the little
room with fragrance, at one and the same time. The coloured crocuses
peeped in from the window boxes outside, whilst the sparrows chirped
and hopped about and hoped that the Writer had something pleasant to
say about them. It was all very peaceful with the sunlight stealing
into the room through the lattice panes, making little patterns upon
the floor, the flickering red of the fire playing at hide and seek with
the diamond patterns and never quite catching each other; the yellow
flowers nodding drowsily over the two childish heads that were now
regarding the Writer most earnestly. The clock upon the mantelpiece
chimed its mellow notes. Three o'clock it said. The afternoon had
seemed almost dull up to that time, but now it all appeared to have
changed in some curious way, ever since the Writer had made his
appearance.

"I wonder," commenced Ridgwell, "if by any chance you could have been
sent to us; you know we were faithfully promised that a Writer should
come and see us and write down for us something we particularly want to
remember. I wonder if you are the man," ended Ridgwell, quizzically.

"