ccept either the scientific or the popular explanation, according
to the bent of his mind.

She at once asked the giant in marriage, and obtained the consent of
his parents by betraying her father into their hands; explaining to
them, however, that he was not good to eat, but might be drunk on the
premises.

The marriage proved a very happy one, but the household duties of the
bride were extremely irksome. It fatigued her to dress the beeves for
dinner; it nearly broke her back to black her lord's boots without any
scaffolding. It took her all day to perform any kindly little office
for him. But she bore it all uncomplainingly, until one morning he
asked her to part his back hair; then the bent sapling of her spirit
flew up and hit him in the face. She gathered up some French novels,
and retired to a lonely tower to breathe out her soul in unavailing
regrets.

One day she saw below her in the forest a dear gazelle, gladding her
with its soft black eye. She leaned out of the window, and said
_Scat!_ The animal did not move. Then she waved her arms--above
described--and said _Shew!_ This time he did not move as much as he
did before. Simprella decided he must have a bill against her; so she
closed her shutters, drew down the blind, and pinned the curtains
together. A moment later she opened them and peeped out. Then she went
down to examine his collar, that she might order one like it.

When the gazelle saw Simprella approach, he arose, and, beckoning with
his tail, made off slowly into the wood. Then Simprella perceived this
was a supernatural gazelle--a variety now extinct, but which then
pervaded the Schwarzwald in considerable quantity--sent by some good
magician, who owed the giant a grudge, to pilot her out of the forest.
Nothing could exceed her joy at this discovery: she whistled a dirge,
sang a Latin hymn, and preached a funeral discourse all in one breath.
Such were the artless methods by which the full heart in the fifteenth
century was compelled to express its gratitute for benefits; the
advertising columns of the daily papers were not then open to the
benefactor's pen.

[Illustration]

All would now have been well, but for the fact that it was not. In
following her deliverer, Simprella observed that his golden collar was
inscribed with the mystic words--HANDS OFF! She tried hard to obey the
injunction; she did her level best; she--but why amplify? Simprella
was a woman.

No sooner had her fingers to