"Now, isn't
that an unreasonable aversion? Fancy not liking such a dear, coaxingly,
clingingly affectionate creature as a snake!"
"Not like snakes!" I exclaimed. "Is such a thing possible?"
"No, he doesn't like them," she repeated with a pretty mock-gravity.
"He's not afraid of them, you know. But he doesn't like them.
He says they're too waggly!"
I was more startled than I liked to show. There was something so
uncanny in this echo of the very words I had so lately heard from that
little forest-sprite, that it was only by a great effort I succeeded in
saying, carelessly, "Let us banish so unpleasant a topic. Won't you
sing us something, Lady Muriel? I know you do sing without music."
"The only songs I know--without music--are desperately sentimental,
I'm afraid! Are your tears all ready?"
"Quite ready! Quite ready!" came from all sides, and Lady Muriel--not
being one of those lady-singers who think it de rigueur to decline to
sing till they have been petitioned three or four times, and have
pleaded failure of memory, loss of voice, and other conclusive reasons
for silence--began at once:--
[Image...'Three badgers on a mossy stone']
"There be three Badgers on a mossy stone,
Beside a dark and covered way:
Each dreams himself a monarch on his throne,
And so they stay and stay
Though their old Father languishes alone,
They stay, and stay, and stay.
"There be three Herrings loitering around,
Longing to share that mossy seat:
Each Herring tries to sing what she has found
That makes Life seem so sweet.
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