e. He rode up to her door and knocked
without getting off his horse, and when Dame Pridgett opened the door
he looked down at her with such queer pale eyes he almost frightened
her.

"Are you Dame Pridgett?" he asked.

"I am," answered the dame.

"And do you go about nursing sick people?"

"Yes, that is my business."

"Then you are the one I want. My wife is ill, and I am seeking some
one to nurse her."

"Where do you live?" asked the dame, for the man was a stranger to
her, and she knew he was not from thereabouts.

"Oh, I come from over beyond the hills, but I have no time to talk.
Give me your hand and mount up behind me."

Dame Pridgett gave him her hand, not because she wanted to, but
because, somehow, when he bade her do so she could not refuse. He gave
her hand a little pull, and she flew up through the air as light as a
bird, and there she was sitting on the horse behind him. The stranger
whistled, and away went the great black horse, fast, fast as the
wind;--so fast that the old Dame had much ado not to be blown off, but
she shut her eyes and held tight to the stranger.

They rode along for what seemed a long distance, and then they stopped
before a poor, mean-looking house. Dame Pridgett stared about her, and
she did not know where they were. She knew she had never seen the
place before. In front of the house were some rocks with weeds growing
among them, and a pool of muddy water, and a few half-dead trees. It
was a dreary place. Two ragged children were playing beside the door
with a handful of pebbles.

The little man lighted down and helped the old dame slip from the
horse; then he led the way into the house. They passed through a mean
hallway and into a room hung round with cobwebs. The room was poorly
furnished with a wooden bed, a table and a few chairs. In the bed lay
a little, round-faced woman with a snub nose and a coarse, freckled
skin, and in the crook of her arm was a baby so small and weak-looking
the nurse knew it could not be more than a few hours old.

"This is my wife," said the stranger. "It will be your duty to wait on
her and to wash and dress the child."

The baby was so queer looking that Dame Pridgett did not much care to
handle it, but still she had come there as a nurse, and she would do
what was required of her.

The little man showed her where the kitchen was, and she heated some
water and then went back to the bedroom and took up the baby to wash
it. But so stran