he caught a glimpse of Nan in the door.

"How I wish that little maiden was my child," said he. And,
straightway, he stopped. His horse pawed and trembled when he lashed
him with a jeweled whip to make him go on; but he could not stir
forward one step. Neither could the count dismount from his saddle; he
sat there fuming with rage.

Meanwhile, poor Dame Clementina and little Nan were overcome with
distress. The sight of their yard full of all these weeping people
was dreadful. Neither of them had any idea how to do away with the
trouble, because of their family inability to see their way out of a
difficulty.

When supper time came, Nan went for the cows, and her mother milked
them into her silver milk-pails, and strained off the milk into her
silver pans. Then they kindled up a fire and cooked some beautiful
milk porridge for the poor people in the yard.

It was a beautiful warm moonlight night, and all the winds were sweet
with roses and pinks; so the people could not suffer out of doors; but
the next morning it rained.

"O, mother!" said Nan, "it is raining, and what will the poor people
do?"

Dame Clementina would never have seen her way out of this difficulty,
had not Dame Golding cried out that her bonnet was getting wet, and
she wanted an umbrella.