“I’ll tell you about them.  When my mother was a girl of sixteen she went into service as a nursemaid in a clergyman’s family.  Every evening the clergyman used to come into the nursery and tell the children a fairy-tale.  That’s how it started.  My mother left service to marry a farmer—­it was quite a grand match for her—­and when I was a baby she told the stories to me.  She has a wonderful memory still, and she tells them capitally.  When I listen I believe every word of them; I like them better than books, too, because they always end happily.  But I can’t repeat them a bit.  As soon as I begin they fall to pieces, and the pieces get mixed up, and, worst of all, the life goes right out of them.  But Taffy, he takes the pieces and puts them together, and the tale is better than ever:  quite different, and new, too.  That’s the puzzle.  It’s not memory with him; it’s something else.”

“But don’t you ever make up a story of your own?” Honoria insisted.

Now you might talk with Mrs. Raymond for ten minutes, perhaps, and think her a simpleton; and then suddenly a cloud (as it were) parted, and you found yourself gazing into depths of clear and beautiful wisdom.

She turned on Honoria with a shy, adorable smile:  “Why, of course I do—­about Taffy.  Come in and let me show you his room and his books.”

An hour later, when Taffy returned, he found Honoria seated at the table and his mother pouring tea.  They said nothing about their visit to his room; and though they had handled every one of his treasures, he never discovered it.  But he did notice—­or rather, he felt—­that the two understood each other.  They did; and it was an understanding he would never be able to share, though he lived to be a hundred.

Mr. Raymond came out from his study and drank his tea in silence.  Honoria observed that he blinked a good deal.  He showed no surprise at her visit, and after a moment seemed unaware of her presence.  At length he raised the cup to his lips, and finding it empty set it down and rose to go back to his work.  Humility interfered and reminded him of a call to be paid at one of the upland farms.  The children might go too, she suggested.  It would be very little distance out of Honoria’s way.

Mr. Raymond sighed, but went for his walking-stick; and they set out.

When they reached the farmhouse he left the children outside.  The town-place was admirably suited for a game of “Follow-my-leader,” which they played for twenty minutes with great seriousness, to the disgust of the roosting poultry.  Then Taffy spied a niche, high up, where a slice had been cut out of a last year’s haystack.  He fetched a ladder.  Up they climbed, drew the ladder after them, and played at being Outlaws in a Cave, until the dusk fell.

Still Mr. Raymond lingered indoors.  “He thinks we have gone home,” said Honoria.  “Now the thing would be to creep down and steal one of the fowls, and bring it back and cook it.”