mother."

"How know ye that?" she asked grimly; for it is a received opinion in
that part of the world that the fairies have power over those who have
never been baptised.

The stranger turned on her a malignant smile.

"There is a young lord in love with her," the stranger says, "and I'm
that lord. Have her at your house to-morrow night at eight o'clock,
and you must stick cross pins through the candle, as you have done for
many a one before, to bring her lover thither by ten, and her
fortune's made. And take this for your trouble."

He extended his long finger and thumb toward her, with a guinea
temptingly displayed.

"I have nowt to do wi' thee. I nivver sid thee afoore. Git thee awa'!
I earned nea goold o' thee, and I'll tak' nane. Awa' wi' thee, or I'll
find ane that will mak' thee!"

The old woman had stopped, and was quivering in every limb as she thus
spoke.

He looked very angry. Sulkily he turned away at her words, and strode
slowly toward the wood from which he had come; and as he approached
it, he seemed to her to grow taller and taller, and stalked into it as
high as a tree.

"I conceited there would come something o't", she said to herself.