Lucy sat down outside among the trees and birds and watched the wan
waving gently in the wind. How neat Sky-High looked in his flowing dress
of white and blue! She wondered again if he were not indeed a wang!
After a while she made up her mind to relate a Jataka story that night.

The curious tales their little serving-man had told, he called Jataka
legends--all of them parables to illustrate the teachings of the divine
Buddha. (Also these tales had accounts of mountains that were more than
a million miles high, of trees that were a thousand miles tall, and of
fishes that were thousands of miles long.)

These tales had enchanted Lucy, though Charlie cared little for them--he
preferred to hear of kites and other Chinese games. But Lucy seemed to
catch their spirit. And in the evening, when Sky-High sat with them
under the trees or in the balconies, she often said, "Now tell us a
Jataka story!"

But one night she had said instead, "Now let _me_ tell _you_ a
Jataka story!"

The idea that Lucy had a Jataka story seemed to greatly amuse Sky-High.
But the tale itself set his black eyes shining and blinking. This had
been Lucy's tale:

"Sky-High, I dreamed that you were a wang and had lived in a palace."

To-day she sat a long time in the arbor to compose the tale she would
tell in the evening when they would be on the veranda, with Sky-High on
the stair at their feet.