"Yes," said Mabel intensely; and Kathleen said, "Oh yes; now for the story. How splendid!"
"The story," said Phœbus unexpectedly, "will be told by our guests."
"Oh no!" said Kathleen, shrinking.
"The lads, maybe, are bolder," said Zeus the king, taking off his rose-wreath, which was a little tight, and rubbing his compressed ears.
"I really can't," said Gerald; "besides, I don't know any stories."
"Nor yet me," said Jimmy.
"It's the story of how we got the ring that they want," said Mabel in a hurry. "I'll tell it if you like, Once upon a time there was a little girl called Mabel," she added yet more hastily, and went on with the tale—all the tale of the enchanted castle, or almost all, that you have read in these pages. The marble Olympians listened enchanted—almost as enchanted as the castle itself, and the soft moonlit moments fell past like pearls dropping into a deep pool.
"And so," Mabel ended abruptly, "Kathleen wished for the boys and the Lord Hermes fetched them and here we all are."
A burst of interested comment and question blossomed out round the end of the story, suddenly broken off short by Mabel.
"But," said she, brushing it aside, as it grew thinner, "now we want you to tell us."
"To tell you?"
"How you come to be alive, and how you
