nning
errands for her neighbours, getting a bite here, a sup there, as reward
for her services. So she made shift to get on, and always looked as spry
and cheery as if she had not a want in the world.

Now one summer evening, as she was trotting, full of smiles as ever,
along the high road to her hovel, what should she see but a big black
pot lying in the ditch!

"Goodness me!" she cried, "that would be just the very thing for me if I
only had something to put in it! But I haven't! Now who could have left
it in the ditch?"

And she looked about her expecting the owner would not be far off; but
she could see nobody.

"Maybe there is a hole in it," she went on, "and that's why it has been
cast away. But it would do fine to put a flower in for my window; so
I'll just take it home with me."

And with that she lifted the lid and looked inside. "Mercy me!" she
cried, fair amazed. "If it isn't full of gold pieces. Here's luck!"

And so it was, brimful of great gold coins. Well, at first she simply
stood stock-still, wondering if she was standing on her head or her
heels. Then she began saying:

"Lawks! But I do feel rich. I feel awful rich!"

After she had said this many times, she began to wonder how she was to
get her treasure home. It was too heavy for her to carry, and she could
see no better way than to tie the end of her shawl to it and drag it
behind her like a go-cart.

"It will soon be dark," she said to herself as she trotted along. "So
much the better! The neighbours will not see what I'm bringing home, and
I shall have all the night to myself, and be able to think what I'll do!
Mayhap I'll buy a grand house and just sit by the fire with a cup o' tea
and do no work at all like a queen. Or maybe I'll bury it at the garden
foot and just keep a bit in the old china teapot on the chimney-piece.
Or maybe--Goody! Goody! I feel that grand I don't know myself."

By this time she was a bit tired of dragging such a heavy weight, and,
stopping to rest a while, turned to look at her treasure.

And lo! it wasn't a pot of gold at all! It was nothing but a lump of
silver.

She stared at it, and rubbed her eyes, and stared at it again.

"Well! I never!" she said at last. "And me thinking it was a pot of
gold! I must have been dreaming. But this is luck! Silver is far less
trouble--easier to mind, and not so easy stolen. Them gold pieces would
have been the death o' me, and with this great lump of silver--"

So she