“Then Mrs. Kaatenstein, after doctoring little Willy Kaatenstein’s poor little stomach and laying him neatly out on a sofa in a cool, dark room, went on to her own room, whence proceeded unusual noises. Unlocking and opening the door, a sight the like of which she had not of late years known overwhelmed her spirit. “The short, dead silence that followed her appearance on the threshhold was but emphasized by the merry tinkling of the gay little circus which had been wound up and would not stop, even under the dark influence of impending tragedy.---- “Well,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “the case of Harry Kaatenstein and Leah Kaatenstein and Jenny Kaatenstein was attended to by their mother. She whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed. “But as for little Willy Kaatenstein--not looking in the least pale or puffy, he sat that evening, after dinner, on Uncle Will’s lap, wearing his own fine gold watch out of the jewel-case, and being continually invited to have a glass of beer. “But in the kitchen, Emma was telling Juley that though she had once thought a great deal of little Willy Kaatenstein she now honestly believed him to be the very worst one of the four.---- “That story,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “was very tiresome. You shouldn’t ask me to tell you stories.” “I am sorry if it tired you,” I said. “But the story was entirely fascinating. It was _exactly_ like the Kaatensteins. And you, telling a story of the Kaatensteins, are delicately, oh, delicately incongruous!” “Were _you_ ever at a feast in the Kaatenstein duck-yard?” said my friend Annabel Lee. “Yes, indeed,” said I, “along with Bill and Katy Kelly, at the age of eleven. And I have seen every toy in the black-walnut bureau.” “And which would you,” said my friend Annabel Lee, “to be at a feast with the Kaatensteins at the age of eleven, or here, now, with me?” “When all’s said,” said I, “here with you, now, by far.” “’Tis very good of you,” said my friend Annabel Lee, and looked at me with her purple eyes. XXI A BOND OF SYMPATHY Having told me stories, my friend Annabel Lee demanded that I should write a bit of verse to read to her. My verse is rather rotten verse, and I told her so. She replied that the fact of its being rotten had but little to do with the matter, that most verse was rotten, anyway, and usually the more rotten the better it suited the reader. She was in that mood. So I wrote some lines and read them to her--there was nothing else to do. She had been kind in telling me stories, though probably she told them because it amused her. When I finished reading, she said that the verse was not rotten at all. She, for her part, would call it not yet quite ripe.