red her with caresses.

Then the story of the dill and the verse was told. "Yes," said the
count, "I truly was envious of you, Clementina, when I saw Nan."

After a little, he looked at his daughter sorrowfully. "I should
dearly love to take you up to the castle with me, Clementina," said
he, "and let you live there always, and make you and the little child
my heirs. But how can I? You are disinherited, you know."

"I don't see any way," assented Dame Clementina, sadly.

Dame Elizabeth was still there, and she spoke up to the count with a
curtesy.

"Noble sir," said she, "why don't you make another will?"

"Why, sure enough," cried the count with great delight, "why don't I?
I'll have my lawyer up to the castle to-morrow."

[Illustration: THE COUNT THINKS HIMSELF INSULTED.]

He did immediately alter his will, and his daughter was no longer
disinherited. She and Nan went to live at the castle, and were
very rich and happy. Nan learned to play on the harp, and wore
snuff-colored satin gowns. She was called Lady Nan, and she lived a
long time, and everybody loved her. But never, so long as she lived,
did she pin the sprig of dill and the verse over the door again. She
kept them at the very bottom of a little satin-wood box--the faded
sprig of dill wrapped round with the bit of paper on which was written
the charm-verse:

"Alva, aden, winira mir,
Villawissen lingen;
Sanchta, wanchta, attazir,
Hor de mussen wingen."

[Illustration: THEY FAIRLY DANCED AND FLOURISHED THEIR HEELS.]

THE SILVER HEN.

Dame Dorothea Penny kept a private school. It was quite a small
school, on account of the small size of her house. She had only twelve
scholars and they filled it quite full; indeed one very little boy had
to sit in the brick oven. On this account Dame Penny was obliged to do
all her cooking on a Saturday when school did not keep; on that day
she baked bread, and cakes, and pies enough to last a week. The oven
was a very large one.

It was on a Saturday that Dame Penny first missed her silver hen. She
owned a wonderful silver hen, whose feathers looked exactly as if they
had been dipped in liquid silver. When she was scratching for worms
out in the yard, and the sun shone on her, she was absolutely
dazzling, and sent little bright reflections into the neighbors'
windows, as if she were really solid silver.

Dame Penny had a sunny little coop with a padlocked door for her, and
she always lo