E V Lucas

The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice E V Lucas

Once upon a time there dwelt in a far country two children, a sister and a brother, namedTilsa and Tobene. Tilsa was twelve and Tobene was ten, and they had grown up, as it were, hand in hand. Their father died when Tobene was only a little piece of pink dimpled dough, and when their mother died too, a few years after, old Alison was told to pack up the thingsand journey with Tilsa and Tobene to the children's grandfather, the Liglid (or Lord Mayor)of Ule, whom they had never yet seen. Old Alison was their nurse, and she had been their father's nurse before them. Nothingworth knowing was unknown to old Alison: she could tell them where the fairies danced bynight, and the names and habits of the different people who live in the stars, and the reasonwhy thrushes' eggs have black spots and hedge sparrows' none, and how to make Toffee ofParadise, and a thousand useful and wonderful things beside. Alison was old and wrinkled and bent, but there was not a warmer heart in all the world, and no tongue could say kinder words than hers, and no hands minister so lovingly to thosewho needed help. It was said that Alison had only to look at a sore place and it was healedagain. If any one loved her more than Tilsa it was Tobene; and if any one loved her morethan Tobene it was Tilsa; and old Alison's love for them was as strong. On the day appointed, the three travellers set forth in a chariot driven by postilions, and inthe course of a week's journeying through strange countries came at last to Ule. At the southern gate they were met by the Liglid. They discovered him to be more than amere person-a Personage!-with white hair, and little beady eyes, and a red nose, and agold-laced hat.'Welcome, ' said he, 'welcome, Tilsa and Tobene, to the city or Ule.' And then he kissed theair an inch or two from the cheek of his grandchildren and led the way to his ho