een very unlucky; I
could not get you any water, but I have got something so nice for you! I
have brought you a pair of silver-gauze stockings which the snail has
sent you, and a pair of blue velvet garters to wear with them, which the
ring-tail dove gave me!"

"Thank you," said poor little Hen-alie, in a very weak voice, "but I
wish you could have brought me some water, these things will do me no
good!"

"I could not bring you water, for the silver-spring is dry," said
Cock-alu, feeling very unhappy, and yet wishing to excuse himself;
"there's not a drop of water left in it!"

"Then it's all over with me!" sighed poor little Hen-alie.

"Don't be down-hearted, my little wife," said Cock-alu, trying to seem
cheerful, "I will give you something better than all, I will give you
the green-fire flash from the wild-cat's eye, which he gave me to wear
on my tail-feathers. Look up, my poor little Hen-alie, and I'll give it
all to you!"

"Alas!" sighed poor little Hen-alie, "what good will they do me! Oh,
that somebody only loved me well enough to have brought me one drop of
silver-spring water!"

All this while something very nice was happening, which I must tell you.

There was in the poultry-yard a shabby little drab-colored hen, very
small and very much despised; Cock-alu would not look at her, nor
Hen-alie either; she had no tail-feathers at all, and long black legs
which looked as if she had borrowed them from a hen twice her size; she
was, in short, the meanest, most ill-conditioned hen in the yard.

All the time, however, that Cock-alu was out on his fruitless errand,
she had been comforting Hen-alie in the best way she could, and assuring
her that Cock-alu would soon be back again with the water from the
silver-spring. But when he came back without a single drop, and only
offered the fine silk stockings and blue velvet garters instead, she set
off, without saying a word, as fast as her long legs would carry her out
of the wood and down to the silver-spring, which she reached in a
wonderfully short time.

Fortunately the silver-spring had flowed into its new channel as clearly
as ever, and the evening dew had dropped its virtues into it. The owls
were shouting "Kla-vit!" from one end of the wood to the other, The dark
leathern-winged bats and the dusky white and buff-colored moths were
flitting about the broad shadows of the trees, but the little hen took
no notice of any of them. On she went, thinking of noth