Tell me a Story By Mrs Molesworth Illustrations by Walter Crane; Joseph Swain Published by Macmillan and Co. This edition dated 1894. Tell me a Story, by Mrs Molesworth. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ TELL ME A STORY, BY MRS MOLESWORTH. CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION. The children sat round me in the gloaming. There were several of them; from Madge, dear Madge with her thick fair hair and soft kind grey eyes, down to pretty little Sybil--Gipsy, we called her for fun,--whom you would hardly have guessed, from her brown face and bright dark eyes, to be Madge's "own cousin." They were mostly girls, the big ones at least, which is what one would expect, for it is not often that big boys care much about sitting still, and even less about anything so sentimental as sitting still in the twilight doing nothing. There were two or three _little_ boys however, nice round-faced little fellows, who had not yet begun to look down upon "girls," and were very much honoured at being admitted to a good game of romps with Madge and her troop. It was one of these--the rosiest and nicest of them all, little Ted--who pulled my dress and whispered, but loud enough for every one to hear, with his coaxingest voice--"Tell me a story, aunty." And then it came all round in a regular buzz, in every voice, repeated again and again--"O aunty! do; dear, dear aunty, tell us a story." I had been knitting, but it had grown too dark even for that. I could not pretend to be "busy." What could I say? I held up my hands in despair. "O children! dear children!" I cried, "truly, truly, I don't know what stories to tell. You are such dreadfully wise people now-a-days--you have long ago left behind you what _I_ used to think wonderful stories--`Cinderella,' and `Beauty and the Beast,' and all the rest of them; and you have such piles of story-books that you are always reading, and many of them too written for you by the cleverest men and women living! What could I tell you that you would care to hear? Why, it will be the children telling stories to amuse the papas and mammas, and aunties next, like the `glorious revolution' in `Liliput Levee!' No, no, your poor old aunty is not quite in her dotage yet. She knows better than to try to amuse you clever people with her stupid old hum-drum stories." I did not mean to hurt the poor dear little things--I did not, truly--I spoke a little in earnest, but more in jest, as I shook my head and looked round the circle. But to my surprise _they_ took it all for earnest, and the tears even gathered in two or three pairs of eyes. "Aunty, you _know_ we don't think so," began Madge, gentle Madge always, reproachfully.