e patience also;
and suffer me to say the world is full of touchstones, and it appears not
easily which is true."

"I have no shame of mine," said the younger brother. "There it is, and
look in it."

So the elder brother looked in the mirror, and he was sore amazed; for he
was an old man, and his hair was white upon his head; and he sat down in
the hall and wept aloud.

"Now," said the younger brother, "see what a fool's part you have played,
that ran over all the world to seek what was lying in our father's
treasury, and came back an old carle for the dogs to bark at, and without
chick or child. And I that was dutiful and wise sit here crowned with
virtues and pleasures, and happy in the light of my hearth."

"Methinks you have a cruel tongue," said the elder brother; and he pulled
out the clear pebble and turned its light on his brother; and behold the
man was lying, his soul was shrunk into the smallness of a pea, and his
heart was a bag of little fears like scorpions, and love was dead in his
bosom. And at that the elder brother cried out aloud, and turned the
light of the pebble on the maid, and, lo! she was but a mask of a woman,
and withinside's she was quite dead, and she smiled as a clock ticks, and
knew not wherefore.

"Oh, well," said the elder brother, "I perceive there is both good and
bad. So fare ye all as well as ye may in the dun; but I will go forth
into the world with my pebble in my pocket."

XIX.--THE POOR THING.

There was a man in the islands who fished for his bare bellyful, and took
his life in his hands to go forth upon the sea between four planks. But
though he had much ado, he was merry of heart; and the gulls heard him
laugh when the spray met him. And though he had little lore, he was
sound of spirit; and when the fish came to his hook in the mid-waters, he
blessed God without weighing. He was bitter poor in goods and bitter
ugly of countenance, and he had no wife.

It fell in the time of the fishing that the man awoke in his house about
the midst of the afternoon. The fire burned in the midst, and the smoke
went up and the sun came down by the chimney. And the man was aware of
the likeness of one that warmed his hands at the red peats.

"I greet you," said the man, "in the name of God."

"I greet you," said he that warmed his hands, "but not in the name of
God, for I am none of His; nor in the name of Hell, for I am not of Hell.
For I am but a bloodless thing,