YOU would never have thought that the chair could talk if you had seen it, and perhaps it would not have said a word for you and me, but it certainly did for Dorothy. It was a solid wooden chair and very old-fashioned¹. It had a face quaintly² carved on its straight back, and Aunt Polly thought a great deal of this old chair because it had belonged to her great-grandmother. One day Dorothy was visiting Aunt Polly with her best doll, Susan Ida. The little girl sat on a hassock and put Susan Ida in the old chair in front of her.  
“How do you do, Susan?” said a voice. “I’m real glad to see you; make yourself comfortable.”
 
Dorothy looked all around to see who had been talking, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. Then she saw the carved face on the chair smiling at her.
 
“Were you talking just now?” asked Dorothy.
 
“Yes,” answered the chair, “I like to talk to little children.”
 
“Do you really,” said Dorothy; “then perhaps you could tell me a story?”
 
“Nothing easier,” replied the chair, “which would you prefer to hear; ‘The Enchanted³ Horse,’ ‘The Three Boxes,’ or ‘The Beautiful Princess Isabelle’?”
 
“O,” said Dorothy, “tell me about the beautiful Princess Isabelle.”
 
“Very well,” said the chair, “you shall hear.”
 
“Excuse me,” said Dorothy, “before you begin. Do you mind Susan Ida sitting on you? She’ll be very quiet.”
 
“Not at all,” was the answer, “I don’t mind being sat on,” and the chair began the story:—
 
Once upon a time there lived a beautiful little princess whose name was Isabelle. She had exquisite⁴ dolls, wonderful toys and lived in a most beautiful castle. But she was not quite134 happy because she had no little brother or sister or cousin to play with. She did not have even a little friend to visit. She lived quite alone in the great castle with the servants and sometimes she felt very lonely. Every day she walked in the castle garden and longed for a playmate. One day as she sat in her little summer-house she said aloud, “O, how I would like somebody to play with.” She tapped her foot on the ground and sighed.
 
All at once as she sat there a little old woman appeared before her.
 
She wore a pointed⁵ hat and carried a crooked⁶ staff, and said in a squeaky voice:
 
“Well, my dear, you tapped for me; what would you like? Think a long time before you speak, because I cannot come again for seven years.”
 
But little Isabelle did not wait a moment. She said eagerly, “Give me a playmate.”
 
“You shall have one,” said the old woman,135 and she struck the floor three times with her crooked stick, saying:
 
“A nick, a knock, a knack⁷.
A beak⁸, a beck, a back.
O blow a crow to Isabelle!
And here it comes, so now farewell.”
The old woman disappeared with a loud laugh and immediately a great black crow flew into the summer-house. Poor little Isabelle, she felt so disappointed that she could have cried. She had asked for a playmate, and the wicked⁹ old woman had given her a crow. But she was a kind good little girl as well as a beautiful princess, and she felt sorry for the poor black crow. It looked so lonesome as it perched on the back of a chair that Isabelle said sweetly:
 
“Poor crow, I wonder what name I had better call you?”
 
“Call me Thalia,” said the crow.
 
“Thalia,” repeated Isabelle. “What a pretty name, where did you hear it?”
“It is my right name,” answered the crow, “and that wicked old woman calls me a crow.”
 
“But, Thalia,” said Isabelle, “you look just like a crow.”
 
“Alas¹⁰! I know it,” replied the bird; “but I was once a little princess like yourself. That old woman turned me into a crow and kept me in her enchanted castle, until to-day, when she called me here.”
 
Isabelle was very much surprised to hear Thalia’s story and said, “I wish I could turn you back into a princess again.”
 
“O, how I wish you could!” exclaimed¹¹ the crow; “but as there is only one way to do it, I fear that I can never be changed.”
 
“Tell me,” said Isabelle, “the way that it can be done.”
 
“If you could get the old woman’s crooked stick you could change me back into my right shape, but you never could get the stick,” said the crow.
 
“But why not?” asked Isabelle. “Couldn’t I go to the old woman’s enchanted castle and take the stick while she was asleep?”
 
“But she never sleeps,” said the crow, “and she never lets the stick out of her hand.”
 
“Then I don’t see how we could ever get it,” cried Isabelle sorrowfully. The poor crow looked very sad, and Isabelle was quiet for a long time thinking hard. “I am going to try,” she cried all at once. “I shall go to the enchanted castle and see if I can get the crooked staff.”
 
The crow shook her head saying, “I’m afraid you’ll never find the castle, and even if you did, you could never get the crooked staff.”
 
“There is nothing like trying, you know,” replied the brave little girl; and the next morning, bright and early, the beautiful Princess Isabelle started out on a long journey to find the old woman’s enchanted castle.
 
She walked a long distance, then she came138 to a little red house. Isabelle knocked on the door and a fox with a bushy tail opened it.
 
“Will you please tell me how to find the enchanted castle of the old woman with the pointed hat and crooked staff?” asked the Princess.
 
“If I tell you,” said the fox, “will you promise to come back?”
 
“I promise,” answered Isabelle.
 
“Turn to your right,” said the fox, “and climb the first hill you see.”
 
“Thank you,” replied Isabelle, and she did just as the fox told her to do.
 
When she climbed to the top of the hill she came to another little red house, and on knocking at the door a goat appeared.
 
“Will you please tell me how to find the enchanted castle of the old woman with the pointed hat and the crooked staff?”
 
“If I tell you,” said the goat, “will you promise to come back to me?”
 
“I promise,” was the answer, and the goat said:
 
“Turn to your right and go up the first hill you see.”
 
Isabelle thanked the goat, and followed his directions. When the top of the second hill was reached she stood before another little red house.
 
She knocked, and a green parrot came to the door.
 
“Will you please te............