eing now weary of games, Amy proposed that they should vary their
pleasures by a tale, which gained the general approval; and Ellen Green
was commissioned to relate it. Ever ready to oblige, she told them she
would, if they chose a subject. "What sort of a story will you have?"

"An Indian story!" exclaimed the younger boys.

"Do tell us about some great historical character--Washington, or King
Alfred, or Napoleon Bonaparte, or some other hero!" cried John Wyndham.

"I go in for a very frightful ghost-story, that will make our hair stand
on end, and make the girls afraid to go to bed!" said his brother
George.

"Tell us a romantic narrative about a knight going to the Crusades, and
his fair lady following him in the disguise of a page!" said Alice
Bolton.

"That's exactly like you!" cried her brother Charlie; "now, I say give
us some exciting adventures by sea or by land; a real fish-story, or
escape from a lion or tiger, or a tale of a bear, or something of that
sort."

"Poor Cousin Ellen! How can she please you all?" said Mary. "As Amy
first proposed it, let us leave it to her to choose the kind of story
she prefers, and so settle the difficulty."

"Agreed! agreed! choose, Amy!"

"As for me, I always like a real fairy-tale," said Amy, her eyes
sparkling with pleasure as she saw with what good nature all had left
the choice to her.

"Then you shall have it; and I don't doubt that Aunt Lucy or Cousin Mary
will contrive to please all in turn, another day."

"Most especially, I hope they will not forget to give Charlie that brush
with the _bear's tail_ that he wants so much!" said Cornelia, with a
saucy glance of her eye.

"Attention, Miss Cornelia! or you will prove that you deserve it
yourself. Don't you see that Ellen is ready to begin?"

The Fairy Wood.

Upon the banks of the Rhine there stand the ruins of an ancient castle,
which still attracts the attention of the passer-by, from its gigantic
remains, and the exceeding beauty of its situation. And if now, when its
glory has departed, the traveller is irresistibly impelled to ask its
name, how imposing must it have been when its dark shadow was thrown
unbroken upon the smooth waters below, and troops of cavaliers and armed
retainers rode over its drawbridge, and mounted its battlements. Here,
in the olden time, dwelt the noble Baron Sigismund; and here, nothing
daunted by the gloomy grandeur of the fortress, his little son Rudolph
romped and froli