and whe-ther she has food to eat?"

"Good Wil-lie," re-plied a voice, "your mo-ther knows that you will be
pro-tect-ed, as all good chil-dren are; and she has food, for she is
in-dus-tri-ous; her hands were giv-en to her from my king-dom, in which
no i-dle hands are ever made, as you shall know from me here-af-ter.
Sleep, then, in peace, that you may rise pre-pa-red for la-bour on the
com-ing morn." So Wil-lie slept.

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF THE OGRESS.]

Wil-lie was ear-ly a-foot; for the day, ac-cord-ing to the hands, was to
be a day of la-bour, with its fruits. He soon left the wood be-hind him,
and saw a large cas-tle before him.

"Here, sure-ly, is some-thing to be done," thought he; so he leapt up
the steps, and tri-ed to raise the knock-er, but it was too hea-vy for
his pu-ny strength. In an in-stant the hands ap-pear-ed, and knock-ed
such a dou-ble knock, that it e-cho-ed like thun-der through the
val-ley, and you might have heard it rum-bling a-way on the dis-tant
moun-tains.

The door o-pen-ed with a sud-den jerk, and the mis-tress of the man-sion
ap-pear-ed. The mo-ment Wil-lie saw her, he back-ed down the steps, for
she was an o-gress, and as ug-ly as o-gress-es ge-ne-ral-ly are. She
gla-red up-on the lit-tle-man who she sup-po-sed had giv-en that great
knock, with sur-prise and as-to-nish-ment; and then, in a voice like a
ve-ry hoarse ra-ven, she cri-ed--

"How dar-ed you to knock like that at my door, you lit-tle var-let? You