People never like to be told to tell stories.

They prefer to drift naturally into them, without a lot of people waiting expectantly for what they are going to say.
But Fanny had such stores of tales of ghosts, fairies, witches, and other thrilling subjects, that she never failed to fascinate her listeners.

She did so now, when once she had begun, until they were all almost afraid to look round the dim kitchen, and Jabez wished, though he would not have owned it, that he had not got that walk home in the dark.
Then they burnt nuts, and melted lead in an iron spoon and poured it into tumblers of cold water, and Fanny's took the shape of the masts and rigging of a ship, though Jabez declared it wasn't nothing of the sort, but was more like clothes-postens with the lines stretched to them, yes, and the very clothes themselves hanging to them.

All but Jabez, though, preferred to think it a ship; it was more exciting.

Grace's lead formed tents of all sizes, and Grace seemed quite pleased.
Of Kitty's they could make nothing at all.
"That looks to me like a rolling-pin lying at the bottom," cried Dan excitedly, "and a beautiful palace, almost like a fairy palace, and--but I don't know what all those little pieces can be meant for.