om he did not know coming
along the street, hope sprang up in him.

'Will you cook the wedding feast in place of me?' he said, 'and I will
pay you well when I return from the race.'

Gladly she agreed, and cooked the feast in a kitchen that looked into
the great hall, where the company were to eat it. After that she watched
the seat where the bridegroom was sitting, and taking a plateful of the
broth, she dropped the ring and the feather into it, and set it herself
before him.

With the first spoonful he took up the ring, and a thrill ran through
him; in the second he beheld the feather and rose from his chair.

'Who has cooked this feast?' asked he, and the real cook, who had come
back from the race, was brought before him.

'He may be the cook, but he did not cook this feast,' said the
bridegroom, and then inquiry was made, and the girl was summoned to the
great hall.

'That is my married wife,' he declared, 'and no one else will I have,'
and at that very moment the spells fell off him, and never more would he
be a hoodie. Happy indeed were they to be together again, and little did
they mind that the hill of poison took long to cross, for she had to go
some way forwards, and then throw the horse-shoes back for him to put on.
Still, at last they were over, and they went back the way she had come,
and stopped at the three houses in order to take their little sons to
their own home.

But the story never says who had stolen them, nor what the coarse comb
had to do with it.

From 'West Highland Tales.'

_THE BROWNIE OF THE LAKE_

ONCE upon a time there lived in France a man whose name was Jalm Riou.
You might have walked a whole day without meeting any one happier or
more contented, for he had a large farm, plenty of money, and, above
all, a daughter called Barbaik, the most graceful dancer and the
best-dressed girl in the whole country side. When she appeared on
holidays in her embroidered cap, five petticoats, each one a little
shorter than the other, and shoes with silver buckles, the women were
all filled with envy, but little cared Barbaik what they might whisper
behind her back as long as she knew that her clothes were finer than any
one else's and that she had more partners than any other girl.

Now amongst all the young men who wanted to marry Barbaik, the one whose
heart was most set on her was her father's head man, but as his manners
were rough and he was exceedingly ugly she would ha