“Was it King Arthur, mother?” interrupted Olly, eagerly.

“Oh no! this king lived in a different country altogether.  He lived in a beautiful hot country over the sea, called Spain.”

“Oh, mother! a hot country!” protested Milly, “that’s where the rain goes to.”

“Well, Milly, I don’t think you know any more about it, except that you tell the rain to go there.  Don’t you know by this time that the rain never does what it’s told?  Really, very little rain goes to Spain, and in some parts of the country the people would be very glad indeed if we could send them some of the rain we don’t want at Ravensnest.  But now, you mustn’t interrupt me, or I shall forget my story—­Well there was once a king who lived in a very hot part of Spain, where they don’t have much rain, and where it hardly ever snows or freezes.  And this king had a beautiful wife, whom he loved very much.  But, unluckily, this beautiful wife had one great fault.  She was always wishing for the most unreasonable and impossible things, and though the king was always trying to get her what she wanted she was never satisfied, and every day she seemed to grow more and more discontented and exacting.  At last, one day in the winter, a most extraordinary thing happened.  A shower of snow fell in Cordova, which was the name of the town where the king and queen lived, and it whitened the hills all around the town, so that they looked as if somebody had been dusting white sugar over them.  Now snow was hardly ever seen in Cordova, and the people in the town wondered at it, and talked about it a great deal.  But after she had looked at it a little-while the queen began to cry bitterly.  None of her ladies could comfort her, nor would she tell any of them what was the matter.  There she sat at her window, weeping, till the king came to see her.  When he came he could not imagine what she was crying about, and begged her to tell him why.  ‘I am weeping,’ she said, sobbing all the time, ’because the hills—­are not always—­covered with snow.  See how pretty they look!  And yet—­I have never, till now, seen them look like that.  If you really loved me, you would manage some way or other that it should snow once a year at any rate.’

“‘But how can I make it snow?’ cried the king in great trouble, because she would go on weeping and weeping, and spoiling her pretty eyes.

“‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said the queen, crossly, ’but you can’t love me a bit, or you’d certainly try.’

“Well, the king thought and thought, and at last he hit upon a beautiful plan.  He sent into all parts of Spain to buy almond trees, and planted them on the hills all round the town.  Now the almond tree, as you know, has a lovely pinky-white blossom, so when the next spring arrived all these thousands of almond trees came out into bloom all over the hills round Cordova, so that they looked at a distance as if they were covered with white snow.