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There was a rue stone furnace, and what spit a girl whose blood is a quarter fire can claied from behind the furnace: a woears and bolts and plates, with no flesh at all on her, only old She had no hair, silver or otherwise, but an oblong head all spiked with joints and gears Her hands ended in long, ers, just like Folio’s The inventor turned to the creature and smiled fondly

“Hour, darling, you know you’re not supposed to come out when company is present”

The silvery woain, pulling a dropcloth over her head and piling scrap on her shoulders Folio laughed

“We can still see you, Hour”

“All right, Mother,” came a muffled, curiously flat voice A bronze hand flashed out and dragged a large wing of tin plates over itself

“No, darling, coreat clatter as she e-stone floor She stood there, hanging her head Gears whirred softly

“I am sorry I came out But she has bad hands,” said the bronze wo between a clock chi

Folio turned her eyes, but none of the rest of her, and looked at my hands “Not everyone can be so blessed as we,” she demurred

“She has bad hands,” the woether, not violins and hands”

“Interesting!”

“Mada?”

“She is not a thing, thank you very , what you would be to a violinist Kindly show a little respect—and don’t you go telling anyone either, or there’ll be no end to the outlandish strangers ill co my locks for miracles”

“How can you have , that talks and walks?”

“You believe with all your smoky little heart that I can s? Isimpler in the world than that…”

THE TALE OF THE