In the middle of the stone-flagged yard two little boys were playing at quoits. Their eyes and hair were as dark as their brown skin, which had been tanned by the sun. In one of the corners of the yard a fair-haired, blue-eyed girl was nursing a kitten and singing it to sleep. The old woman was singing too, or rather humming a tune to herself as she turned her wheel. She was very old: her hair was white and silvery, and her face was furrowed by a hundred wrinkles. Her eyes were blue as the sky, and perhaps they had once been full of fire and laughter, but all that had been quenched and washed out long ago, and Time, with his noiseless chisel, had sharpened her delicate features and hollowed out her cheeks, which were as white as ivory. But her hands as they twisted the wood were the hands of a young woman, and seemed as though they had been fashioned by a rare craftsman, so perfect were they in shape and proportion, as firm as carved marble, as delicate as flowers. The sun sank behind the hills of the coast, and a flood of scarlet light spread along the West just above them, melting higher up into orange, and still higher into a luminous blue, which turned to green later as the evening deepened. The air was cool and sharp, and the little boys, who had finished their game, drew near to the fire. “Tell us a story,” said the elder of the two boys, as they curled themselves up at the feet of the old woman. “You know all my stories,” she said. “That doesn’t matter,” said the boy. “You can tell us an old one.” “Well,” said the old woman, “I suppose I must. There was once upon a time a King and a Queen who had three sons and one daughter.” At the sound of these words the little girl ran up and nestled in the folds of the old woman’s long cloak. “No, not that one,” one of the little boys interrupted, “tell us about the Queen without a heart.” So the old woman began and said:--