some salve left on
it.

When Dame Pridgett straightened up and looked about her she could
hardly keep from crying out again at what she saw. The room and
everything in it looked different. Instead of being poor and mean, it
was like a chamber in a castle. Where there had been cobwebs were now
shimmering silken hangings. The bed and all the furniture was of gold,
magnificently carved. The sheets and pillow cases were of silk, and
instead of a coarse, snub-nosed little woman, there among the pillows
lay the most exquisite little lady the old dame had ever set eyes on;
her skin was as fine as a rose leaf, her hair like spun gold, her lips
like coral, and her eyes as bright as stars. The babe, also, from
being a very ordinary looking child, had become the most exquisite
little elfin creature that ever was seen.

Dame Pridgett managed somehow to keep quiet and hide her amazement,
but now she knew very well that it was to fairyland she had come, and
that these were fairy folk.

She made some excuse to go to the window and look out. The change
outside was no less wonderful than that within. The muddy pool she now
saw was a shining lake; the rocks were grottoes; the trees were
covered with leaves and shining fruit, and the weeds were beds of
flowers of wondrous colors, such as she had never seen before. As for
the ragged children, she saw them now as fairy children clothed in the
finest of laces and playing, not with pebbles, but with precious
jewels so brilliant that they fairly dazzled the eyes.

Dame Pridgett managed to keep her mouth shut and acted in such a way
that the fairies never suspected she had used the magic ointment, and
could now see them as they were. But it was only with the right eye,
the one she had touched with the salve, that she could see thus. When
she closed that eye and looked with the other, everything was just as
it had been before, and seemed so mean and squalid it was difficult to
believe it could appear otherwise.

So time went on until the fairy lady was well again and had no need of
a nurse to care for her. Then one day the little man came again on his
black steed and called the old dame out to him.

"You have served us well," said he, "and here is your reward," and he
placed a purse of gold pieces in her hand. Then he caught hold of her
and lifted her up behind him on to the horse, and away they went,
swifter than the wind. Dame Pridgett had to shut her eyes to keep from
growing dizzy an