“Shut your eyes, Eric.  That must be best, not to look at her at all.  That is what mother did when she came 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, and how she had watched it day after day flying back and forth in the forest, its yellow breast flashing among the green leaves.  It had a long golden bill, and its tail was black as jet; and its wings were the softest gray in the world with a feather of jet in either one.  Its song was the clearest, the highest, the purest of all the bird songs in the forest.  It was a wonderful bird, and she wanted it for her own.