Good evening. Welcome to the Just Sleep podcast. I'm Tasia, your host.

Every week, I will read you an old story to help you relax, put the stressful day behind you, and drift off to sleep.

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Tonight, I continue the story, The Blue Castle.

So lie down, close your eyes, and let me read you a story.

Chapter 11

Meanwhile,

The dinner in its earlier stages was dragging its slow length along, true to sterling form.

The room was chilly, in spite of the calendar, and Aunt Alberta had the gas logs lighted.

Everybody in the clan envied her those gas logs, except Valency. Glorious open fires blazed in

every room of her blue castle when autumn nights were cool, but she would have frozen to death in it before

she would have committed the sacrilege of a gas log. Uncle Herbert made his hardy perennial joke

when he helped Aunt Wellington to the cold meat. Mary, will you have a little lamb? Aunt Mildred

told the same old story of once finding a lost ring in a turkey's crop.

Uncle Benjamin told his favorite tale of how he had once chased and punished a now famous man

for stealing apples. Second cousin Jane described all her sufferings with an ulcerating tooth.

Aunt Wellington admired the pattern of Aunt Alberta's silver teaspoons

and lamented the fact that one of her own had been lost.

It spoiled the set.

...