re than a vast quantity of
eggs, and all the while she heard the hen singing or clucking:

"'_Coccode_! Dear me!
Where can Furicchia be?
_Coccode_! Furicchia mine!
Bring me quick some warm red wine!
_Coccode_! Three eggs I have laid!
_Coccode_! Now six for your trade.
_Coccode_! Now there are nine,
Bring me quickly the warm red wine!
_Coccode_! Take them away;
Many more for thee will I lay,
And thou wilt be a lady grand,
As fine as any in all the land;
And should it happen that any one
Drinks of this wine as I have done,
Eggs like me she will surely lay;
That is the secret, that is the way.
_Coccode_! _Coccode_!'

"Now the Signora heard all this, and knew not whence the song came, but
she found the pot of hot wine and drank it nearly all, but had not time
to finish it nor to escape before Furicchia returned. And the latter
began to scold her visitor for taking such liberty, to which the Signora
replied, 'Furicchia, I came in here to buy an egg, and being shivering
with cold, and seeing this hot wine, I drank it, meaning indeed to pay
for it.' But Furicchia replied, 'Get thee gone; thou hast only come here
to spy out my secret, and much good may it do thee!'

"The Signora went home, when she begun to feel great pain, and also, in
spite of herself, to cluck like a hen, to the amazement of everybody, and
then sang:

"'_Coccode_! Che mal di corpo!
_Coccode_! Voglio fa l'uovo!
E se l'uova non faro,
Di dolore moriro.'

"'_Coccode_! What a pain in my leg!
_Coccode_! I must lay an egg!
And if my eggs I cannot lay,
I shall surely die to-day.'

"Then she began to lay eggs indeed--_tante_, _tante_--till they nearly
filled all the room, and truly her friends were aghast at such a sight,
never having heard of such a thing before; but she replied, 'Keep quiet;
it is a secret. I have found out how Furicchia gets her eggs, and we
shall be as rich as she.' And having laid her eggs, nothing would do but
she must needs hatch them, and all the time for many days she sat and
sat, clucking like a hen--_coccode_! _coccode_!--and pecking at crusts
like a hen, for she would not eat in any other way. And so she sat and
shrivelled up until she became a hen indeed, and was never anything else,
and died one. But when the eggs hatched, there came from them not
chicks, but mice, which ran away into the cellar, and so e