kind. The soft,
warm air of the south revived her by degrees--so much, that by the end
of the year she could walk in the public garden and delight in the warm
sunshine; in another month she could ride with her father to see all the
strange old castles in that neighborhood, and by the end of February she
was as well as ever she had been in her life; and all this came from her
desire to do good to the fairy by going to the south.

"And now," thought the pedlar, "there is no doubt that the daisies are
growing on Hulda's grave by this time, so I will go up again to the
outside of the world, and sell my wares to the people who resort to
those public places."

So one day when in that warm climate the spring flowers were already
blooming on the hillsides, up he came close to the ruined walls of a
castle, and set his pack down beside him to rest after the fatigues of
his journey.

"This is a cool, shady place," he said, looking round, "and these dark
yew-trees conceal it very well from the road. I shall come here always
in the middle of the day, when the sun is too hot, and count over my
gains. How hard my mistress, the Lizard, makes me work! Who would have
thought she would have wished to deck her green head with opals down
there, where there are only a tribe of brown gnomes to see her? But I
have not given her that one out of the ring which I stole, nor three
others that I conjured out of the crozier of the priest as I knelt at
the altar, and they thought I was rehearsing a prayer to the Virgin."

After resting some time, the pedlar took up his pack and went boldly on
to the gardens, never doubting but that Hulda was dead; but it so
happened that at that moment Hulda and her mother sat at work in a shady
part of the garden under some elder-trees.

"What is the matter, my sweet bird?" said Hulda, for the bird pecked her
wrist, and fluttered its wings, and opened its beak as if it were very
much frightened.

"Let us go, mother, and look about us," said Hulda.

So they both got up and wandered all over the gardens; but the pedlar,
in the meantime, had walked on toward the town, and they saw nothing of
him.

"Sing to me, my sweet bird," said Hulda that night as she lay down to
sleep. "Tell me _why_ you pecked my wrist."

Then the bird sang to her:

"Who came from the ruin, the ivy-clad ruin,
With old shaking arches, all moss overgrown,
Where the flitter-bat hideth,
The limber snak