which, I now saw, was built of the stems of small trees set
closely together, and was furnished with rough chairs and tables,
from which even the bark had not been removed. As soon as she
had shut the door and set a chair--

"You have fairy blood in you," said she, looking hard at me.

"How do you know that?"

"You could not have got so far into this wood if it were not so;
and I am trying to find out some trace of it in your countenance.
I think I see it."

"What do you see?"

"Oh, never mind: I may be mistaken in that."

"But how then do you come to live here?"

"Because I too have fairy blood in me."

Here I, in my turn, looked hard at her, and thought I could
perceive, notwithstanding the coarseness of her features, and
especially the heaviness of her eyebrows, a something unusual--I
could hardly call it grace, and yet it was an expression that
strangely contrasted with the form of her features. I noticed
too that her hands were delicately formed, though brown with work
and exposure.

"I should be ill," she continued, "if I did not live on the