Take your story seriously. No matter how riotously absurd it is, or how
full of inane repetition, remember, if it is good enough to tell, it is
a real story, and must be treated with respect. If you cannot feel so
toward it, do not tell it. Have faith in the story, and in the attitude
of the children toward it and you. If you fail in this, the immediate
result will be a touch of shamefacedness, affecting your manner
unfavourably, and, probably, influencing your accuracy and imaginative
vividness.

Perhaps I can make the point clearer by telling you about one of the
girls in a class which was studying stories last winter; I feel sure if
she or any of her fellow-students recognises the incident, she will not
resent being made to serve the good cause, even in the unattractive
guise of a warning example.

A few members of the class had prepared the story of _The Fisherman and
his Wife_. The first girl called on was evidently inclined to feel that
it was rather a foolish story. She tried to tell it well, but there were
parts of it which produced in her the touch of shamefacedness to which I
have referred.

When she came to the rhyme,--

"O man of the sea, come, listen to me,
For Alice, my wife, the plague of my life,
Has sent me to beg a boon of thee,"

she said it rather rapidly. At the first repetition she said it still
more rapidly; the next time she came to the jingle she said it so fast