Nan was sitting at the window inside, knitting her stent on a blue
stocking. "Ah, Sweetheart," said her mother, laughing, "you have
little cause to pin the dill and the verse over our door. None is
likely to envy us, or to be ill-disposed toward us."

"O, mother!" said Nan, "I know it, but I thought it would be so nice
to feel sure. Oh, there is Dame Golding coming after some milk. Do you
suppose she will have to stop?"

"What nonsense!" said her mother. They both of them watched Dame
Golding coming. All of a sudden, she stopped short, just outside. She
could go no further. She tried to lift her feet, but could not.

"O, mother!" cried Nan, "she has stopped!"

The poor woman began to scream. She was frightened almost to death.
Nan and her mother were not much less frightened, but they did not
know what to do. They ran out, and tried to comfort her, and gave her
some cream to drink; but it did not amount to much. Dame Golding had
secretly envied Dame Clementina for her silver milk-pans. Nan and her
mother knew why their visitor was so suddenly rooted to the spot, of
course, but she did not. She thought her feet were paralyzed, and she
kept begging them to send for her husband.

"Perhaps he can pull her away," said Nan, crying. How she wished she
had never pinned the dill and the verse over the door! So she set off
for Dame Golding's husband. He came running in a great hurry; but when
he had nearly reached his wife, and had his arms reached out to grasp
her, he, too, stopped short. He had envied Dame Clementina for her
beautiful white cows, and there he was fast, also.