The Mask of the Enchantress Read Online Free PDF

another picnic.
    I was delighted. n the same place,I cried. ill there be chicken bones?
    es,she promised. hen you can have more wishes.
    might not get the bigger piece of bone.
    should think you would,she said with a smile.
    iss Anabel, will he will Joel be there?
    think he might be,she said. ou liked him, did you, Suewellyn?she asked.
    I hesitated. Like was not exactly a word one could apply to gods.
    She was alarmed. e didn frighten you?
    Again I was silent and she went on: o you want to see him again?
    h yes,I cried fervently, and she seemed satisfied.
    I was sad when the fly came to take her to the station; but not so sad as usual because, although the spring was a long way ahead, it would come in time and then I had the glorious prospect of the forest before me.
    Uncle William had finished the Christmas crib he had made in his woodshed and it was now in the church with a model of the Christ child lying in it. Three of the boys from school were going to be the three wise men. The vicar son was one, because I supposed it was natural that the vicar should want him to be; Anthony Felton was another because he was the squire grandson and his family gave liberally to the church and allowed all the garden parties and sales of work to be held on their lawns or, when it was wet, in the great hall; and Tom was the other because he had a beautiful voice. To hear that angelic voice proceeding from that rather untidy boy was like a miracle. I was glad for Tom. It was an honor. Matty was delighted about it. is father had a voice. So did my granddaddy,she told me. t runs in families.
    Tom had stuck an enormous sprig of holly over The Sailor Return in Matty room, which gave it a jaunty air. I had often studied The Sailor Return because it was the sort of picture I should not have expected Matty to have. There was something gloomy about it. It was a print and there was no color for one thing. The sailor stood at the door of the cottage with a bundle on his shoulder. His wife was staring blankly before her as though she were facing some major disaster instead of the return of a loved one. Matty had talked about the picture with tears in her eyes. It was strange that one who could laugh about the trials of real life should shed tears over the imaginary ones of someone in a picture.
    I had badgered her to tell me the story. ell,she said, t like this. You see the cot there. There a little baby in it. Now that baby didn ought to have been born because the sailor had been away for three years and she had this little baby while he was away. He don like that and she don either.
    hy doesn he? You think he be glad to come home and find a little baby.
    ell, it means that it not his and he don like that.
    hy?
    ell, he what you might call jealous. There was a pair of them pictures. My mammy split them up when she died. She said, he Return is for you, Matty, and The Departure is for Emma. Emma my sister. She married and went up north.
    aking The Departure with her?
    he did. Didn think much of it either. But I have liked to have the pair. Though The Departure was very sad. He killed her, you see, and the police was there to take him away to be hanged. That what The Departure meant. Oh, I have loved to have The Departure.
    atty,I asked, hat happened to the little baby in the cot?
    omeone took care of it,she said.
    oor baby! It had no mother or father after that.
    Matty said quickly: om was in here telling me about that there postbox youe got at school. I hope youe done a nice one for Tom. He a good boy, our Tom is.
    e done a lovely one,I said, f a horse.
    oml like that. He a rare one for horses. Wee thinking of putting him to learn with Blacksmith Jolly. Blacksmiths have a lot to do with horses.
    Sessions with Matty always came to an end too soon. They were always overshadowed by the knowledge that Aunt Amelia would be expecting me home.
    Crabtree Cottage was cheerless after Matty. The linoleum on the floor was polished to danger point and there was no