issed to sun or moon,
My grief--my grief!

NORA HOPPER.

The Corpse Watchers

There was once a poor woman that had three daughters, and one day the
eldest said, "Mother, bake my cake and kill my cock till I go seek my
fortune." So she did, and when all was ready, says her mother to her,
"Which will you have--half of these with my blessing, or the whole with
my curse?" "Curse or no curse," says she, "the whole is little enough."
So away she set, and if the mother didn't give her her curse, she didn't
give her her blessing.

She walked, and she walked, till she was tired and hungry, and then she
sat down to take her dinner. While she was eating it a poor woman came
up, and asked for a bit. "The dickens a bit you'll get from me," says
she; "it's all too little for myself." And the poor woman walked away
very sorrowful. At nightfall she got lodging at a farmer's, and the
woman of the house told her that she'd give her a spadeful of gold and a
shovelful of silver if she'd only sit up and watch her son's corpse that
was waking in the next room. She said she'd do that, and so, when the
family were in their bed, she sat by the fire, and cast an eye from time
to time on the corpse that was lying under the table.

All at once the dead man got up in his shroud, and stood before her, and
said, "All alone, fair maid?" She gave him no answer; when he had said
it the third time he struck her with a switch, and she became a grey
flag.

About a week after, the second daughter went to seek her fortune, and
she didn't care for her mother's blessing no more _nor_ her sister, and
the very same thing happened to her. She was left a grey flag by the
side of the other.

At last the youngest went off in search of the other two, and she took
care to carry her mother's blessing with her. She shared her dinner with
the poor woman on the road, and _she_ told her that she would watch over
her.

Well, she got lodging in the same place as the others, and agreed to
mind the corpse. She sat up by the fire, with the dog and cat, and
amused herself with some apples and nuts the mistress had given her. She
thought it a pity that the man under the table was a corpse, he was so
handsome.

But at last he got up, and, says he, "All alone, fair maid?" and she
wasn't long about an answer:

All alone I am not,
I've little dog Douse, and Pussy, my cat;
I've apples to roast and nuts to crack,
And all alone I am not.

"Ho, h