powerful charm."

"O, mother! will you write it off for me, if I will bring you a bit of
paper and a pen?"

"Certainly," replied her mother, and wrote it off when Nan brought pen
and paper.

"Now," said she, "you must run off and play again, and not hinder me
any longer, or I shall not get my butter made to-day."

So Nan danced away with the verse, and the sprig of dill, and her
mother went on churning.

She had a beautiful tall stone churn, with the sides all carved with
figures in relief. There were milkmaids and cows as natural as life
all around the churn. The dairy was charming, too. The shelves were
carved stone; and the floor had a little silvery rill running right
through the middle of it, with green ferns at the sides. All along the
stone shelves were set pans full of yellow cream, and the pans were
all of solid silver, with a chasing of buttercups and daisies around
the brims.

It was not a common dairy, and Dame Clementina was not a common
dairy-woman. She was very tall and stately, and wore her silver-white
hair braided around her head like a crown, with a high silver comb
at the top. She walked like a queen; indeed she was a noble count's
daughter. In her early youth, she had married a pretty young dairyman,
against her father's wishes; so she had been disinherited. The
dairyman had been so very poor and low down in the world, that the