Requesting Gifts

            “Ada, what will you bring me back from Harad?” Eldarion asked.  “Will you be back for Mettarë?”

            “I hope to be back by then.  And what would you wish as a gift?”

            “A monkey!” he said happily.

            “You are a monkey,” Melian advised him.  “Look at you--you just dropped your fork again!”

            “And what do you wish me to bring you?” the children’s indulgent father asked his daughter.

            “A new instrument to learn to play.”

            “Ah--then I should probably find you a zither.”

            “Is it like a violin?” Eldarion asked.

            “It has many more strings,” his father answered, smiling.  “And you play it with your fingers, not a bow.

            “When do you leave, Ada?” his daughter asked.

            “I must be at the wharf at moonrise.”

            “What shall you bring back for Nana?” Eldarion asked.

            Melian suggested, “A bottle of scent, perhaps?”

            “Ah,” her father smiled.  “She’d like that!”