n hour to go a few hundred yards.

'It will be dark at this rate before I get to the first house,'
thought she, and stopped to look about her. Suddenly a little woman in
a high-crowned hat stepped from behind a tree in front of her.

'This is a bad day for walking! Are you going far?' inquired the
little woman.

'Well, I want to go to the village; but I don't see how I am ever to
get there,' answered the other.

'And may I ask what important business takes you there?' asked the
little woman, who was really a witch.

'My house is so dreary, with no one to speak to; I cannot stay in it
alone, and I am seeking for a child--I don't mind how small she
is--who will keep me company.'

'Oh, if that is all, you need go no further,' replied the witch,
putting her hand in her pocket. 'Look, here is a barley corn, as a
favour you shall have it for twelve shillings, and if you plant it in
a flower-pot, and give it plenty of water, in a few days you will see
something wonderful.'

This promise raised the woman's spirits. She gladly paid down the
price, and as soon as she returned home she dug a hole in a flower-pot
and put in the seed.

For three days she waited, hardly taking her eyes from the flower-pot
in its warm corner, and on the third morning she saw that, while she
was asleep, a tall red tulip had shot up, sheathed in green leaves.

'What a beautiful blossom,' cried the woman, stooping to kiss it,
when, as she did so, the red petals burst asunder, and in the midst of
them was a lovely little girl only an inch high. This tiny little
creature was seated on a mattress of violets, and covered with a quilt
of rose leaves, and she opened her eyes and smiled at the woman as if
she had known her all her life.

'Oh! you darling; I shall never be lonely any more!' she exclaimed in
rapture; and the baby nodded her head as much as to say:

'No, of course you won't!'

The woman lost no time in seeking for a roomy walnut-shell, which she
lined thickly with white satin, and on it she placed the mattress,
with the child, whom she called Maia, upon it. This was her bed, and
stood on a chair close to where her foster-mother was sleeping; but in
the morning she was lifted out, and placed on a leaf in the middle of
a large bowl of water, and given two white horse-hairs to row herself
about with. She was the happiest baby that ever was seen, and passed
the whole day singing to herself, in a language of her own, that
nobody else co