making a nosegay for her mother. She picked lavender and sweet-william
and pinks, and bunched them up together. Finally she pulled a little
sprig of dill, and ran, with that and the nosegay, to her mother in
the dairy.

"Mother dear," said she, "here is a little nosegay for you; and what
was it I overheard you telling Dame Elizabeth about dill last night?"

Dame Clementina stopped churning and took the nosegay. "Thank you,
Sweetheart, it is lovely," said she, "and, as for the dill--it is a
charmed plant, you know, like four-leaved clover."

"Do you put it over the door?" asked Nan.

"Yes. Nobody who is envious or ill-disposed can enter into the house
if there is a sprig of dill over the door. Then I know another charm
which makes it stronger. If one just writes this verse:

"'Alva, aden, winira mir,
Villawissen lingen;
Sanchta, wanchta, attazir,
Hor de mussen wingen,'

under the sprig of dill, every one envious, or evil-disposed, who
attempts to enter the house, will have to stop short, just where they
are, and stand there; they cannot move."

"What does the verse mean?" asked Nan.

"That, I do not know. It is written in a foreign language. But it is a