ame before. She bolted the door and
then we sat down in front of the fire and never looked at the window
once, while she told me a long, lovely World Story about Psyche and her
little playmate Eros. Then when we had forgotten all about the Beautiful
Wicked Witch, we looked at the window by accident and she was gone.
Come, I'll tell you a World Story now, the same one."

But Eric hardly heard what she was saying. He moved nearer and nearer to
the window. Ivra followed him, charmed by the laughing face there too.
Then together they unbolted the windowpane and opened it outward. The
Beautiful Wicked Witch stepped in.

"How silly to be afraid of me, children," she laughed. "I have only come
to play with you."

"Oh goody!" cried both of the children together. For now that she was in
the room all their fear and wonder had vanished.

It was dusk, and so they lighted all the candles and poked the fire,
before they turned to entertain their guest. But the candles did not
burn very well, very faintly and flickeringly,--and the fire fell lower
and lower, instead of growing higher and higher as they nursed it.

"Don't mind about that," laughed the Beautiful Wicked Witch. "There's
enough light from the window for us to play together in. We won't bother
with the stubborn old fire and the silly little copy-cat candles. Come,
what shall we play?"

But the children had been playing hard all day, and their bodies were
tired. "Oh, tell us a story instead of playing," begged Ivra. "This is
the time when mother tells her very best stories."

"Well, I am not mother," said the Beautiful Wicked Witch; "but I will
tell you the best stories I can. Come sit near the window where the
light is stronger. That fire will never burn while I am here. I am
brighter than it, and the old thing is jealous."

The children laughed at her joke. But it was true,--she was very bright.
Her eyes seemed to light the room, or perhaps it was her gown, like an
opal fire, blue and pink and purple, changing and glowing, and made of
the softest silk.

Ivra nestled close to her knee where she could stroke the gleaming silk.
Eric sprawled on the floor at her feet, his face upturned to hers.

Then she told them a story. It was not like any of Helma's World
Stories, but the children liked it. It was all about a gorgeous bird she
had at home in her tree-house. She told how she had heard it singing one
morning in early spring, high up in the branches of her tree, an