who asked her to come to his wife who was too ill to mind her baby.
Dame Goody didn't like the look of the old fellow, but business is
business; so she popped on her things, and went down to him. And when
she got down to him, he whisked her up on to a large coal-black horse
with fiery eyes, that stood at the door; and soon they were going at a
rare pace, Dame Goody holding on to the old fellow like grim death.

They rode, and they rode, till at last they stopped before a cottage
door. So they got down and went in and found the good woman abed with
the children playing about; and the babe, a fine bouncing boy, beside
her.

Dame Goody took the babe, which was as fine a baby boy as you'd wish
to see. The mother, when she handed the baby to Dame Goody to mind,
gave her a box of ointment, and told her to stroke the baby's eyes
with it as soon as it opened them. After a while it began to open its
eyes. Dame Goody saw that it had squinny eyes just like its father. So
she took the box of ointment and stroked its two eyelids with it. But
she couldn't help wondering what it was for, as she had never seen
such a thing done before. So she looked to see if the others were
looking, and, when they were not noticing she stroked her own right
eyelid with the ointment.

No sooner had she done so, than everything seemed changed about her.
The cottage became elegantly furnished. The mother in the bed was a
beautiful lady, dressed up in white silk. The little baby was still
more beautiful than before, and its clothes were made of a sort of
silvery gauze. Its little brothers and sisters around the bed were
flat-nosed imps with pointed ears, who made faces at one another, and
scratched their polls. Sometimes they would pull the sick lady's ears