"Who's to begin?" said Aunt Emma. "I think mother had better begin. Afterwards it will be your turn, Olly; then father, then Milly, and then me." "I don't believe I've got a scrap of a story in my head," said Mrs. Norton. "It's weeks since I caught one last." "Then look here, Olly," said Aunt Emma, "I'll tell you what to do. Go up gently behind mother, and kiss her three times on the top of the head. That's the way to send the stories in. Mother will soon begin to feel one fidgeting inside her head after that." So Olly went gently up behind his mother, climbed on a stool at the back of her chair, and kissed her softly three times at the back of her head. Mrs. Norton lay still for a few moments after the kisses, with closed eyes. "Ah!" she said at last. "Now I think I've caught one. But it's a very little one, poor little thing. And yet, strange to say, though it's very little, it's very old. Now, children, you must be kind to my story. I caught him first a great many years ago in an old book, but I am afraid you will hardly care for him as much as I did. Well, once upon a time there was a great king." "Was it King Arthur, mother?" interrupted Olly, eagerly. "Oh no! this king lived in a different country altogether. He lived in a beautiful hot country over the sea, called Spain." "Oh, mother! a _hot_ country!" protested Milly, "that's where the rain goes to." "Well, Milly, I don't think you know any more about it, except that you _tell_ the rain to go there. Don't you know by this time that the rain never does what it's told? Really, very little rain goes to Spain, and in some parts of the country the people would be very glad indeed if we could send them some of the rain we don't want at Ravensnest. But now, you mustn't interrupt me, or I shall forget my story--Well there was once a king who lived in a _very_ hot part of Spain, where they don't have much rain, and where it hardly ever snows or freezes. And this king had a beautiful wife, whom he loved very much. But, unluckily, this beautiful wife had one great fault. She was always wishing for the most unreasonable and impossible things, and though the king was always trying to get her what she wanted she was never satisfied, and every day she seemed to grow more and more discontented and exacting. At last, one day in the winter, a most extraordinary thing happened. A shower of snow fell in Cordova, which was the name of the town where the king and queen lived, and it whitened the hills all around the town, so that they looked as if somebody had been dusting white sugar over them. Now snow was hardly ever seen in Cordova, and the people in the town wondered at it, and talked about it a great deal. But after she had looked at it a little-while the queen began to cry bitterly. None of her ladies could comfort her, nor would she tell any of them what was the matter. There she sat at her window, weeping, till the king came to see her. When he