d peacocks and say imperiously: "Spread out
your tails, or I will smack your silly heads!" and they obeyed her
meekly at once.

She had a pet frog in the pond, and once when the gardener was scolding
her for breaking some of his beautiful lilies, she popped it down his
neck, to his horror and disgust! For this she was whipped and put to
bed. I think she richly deserved it--don't you?

The garden at the back of the Castle led into the dense forest by which
the mountains were covered. Babette would sit on the stone wall and gaze
into the deep shades, as if she could see things there that were
invisible to others. She knew how to call the deer. One day she enticed
a fine stag into the garden. She made a garland of cornflowers and
ox-eye daisies, and threw it over his antlers; then she sprang on his
back, holding a red foxglove in her hand for a whip, and galloped round
the garden, singing and shouting: "Look at me, look at me! I am the
Queen of the fairies!"

The Countess herself owned that she had never seen a prettier sight; but
then she sighed deeply, and said to her husband she feared all was not
right with the child.

The Count shared her fears to some extent, and nurse had orders never to
let her out of her sight.

Nurse had several times seen a strange man watching Babette from over
the wall as she played alone in the garden. She too felt nervous and
anxious about her little charge.

PART II

Years passed by, Babette grew into a tall and charming maiden. She
learned to read and write, and to play on the harp. She could even speak
a little French, which was the fashionable language of the Court in
those days. So that with these accomplishments she was considered a fine
lady, far above the village children, who had formerly despised her.

One fine evening (she was then about sixteen years of age) she was
walking with her old nurse in the forest, not far from the Castle,
picking bilberries, and singing to herself songs of her own composing.
The wood was very still; not a leaf stirred. The setting sun shone out
behind a beech-tree, making a brilliant star of iridescent colours that
dazzled her eyes. She heard a sudden noise as of a cough: the bushes
near her rustled. She felt frightened and called out: "Nurse, nurse," in
trembling tones.

As she spoke, a man sprang out of the wood and seized her by the arm.
Nurse began to scream; but the man raised the stick he had in his hand,
and she stood as if turned t