ir pure reflections of
the light and sunshine--but the best she could fashion with the
materials she had at hand; for the only soap she could find was
Imagination, and her pipe was a humble black pen.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE TROLL IN THE CHURCH FOUNTAIN 1
THE IMP IN THE CHINTZ CURTAIN 13
HEARTSEASE 22
A STORY OF SIENA 27
THE STONE-MAIDEN 44
THE GRASS OF PARNASSUS 51
THE HEDGEHOGS' COFFEE PARTY 53
UNCLE VOLODIA 68
THE ANGEL AND THE LILIES 95
THE ALPEN-ECHO 100
THE SCROLL IN THE MARKET PLACE 103
A SCRAP OF ETRUSCAN POTTERY 109
THE GOATS ON THE GLACIER 114
THE GREAT LADY'S CHIEF-MOURNER 139
DAME FOSSIE'S CHINA DOG 142
PRINCESS SIDIGUNDA'S GOLDEN SHOES 161
THE BADGER'S SCHOOL 179
BOBBIE'S TWO SHILLINGS 203
THE TROLL IN THE CHURCH FOUNTAIN.
CHAPTER I.
It was a village of fountains. They poured from the sides of houses,
bubbled up at street corners, sprang from stone troughs by the
roadside, and one even gushed from the very walls of the old Church
itself, and fell with a monotonous tinkle into a carved stone basin
beneath.
The old Church stood on a high plateau overlooking the lake. It jutted
out so far, on its great rock, that it seemed to overhang the
precipice; and as the neighbours walked upon the terrace on Sundays,
and enjoyed the shade of the row of plane trees, they could look down
over the low walls of the Churchyard almost into the chimneys of the
wooden houses clustering below.
There were wide stone seats on the terrace, grey and worn by the
weather, and by the generations of children who had played round them;
and here the mothers and grandmothers, with their distaffs in their
hands, loved to collect on summer evenings.
Often Terli had seen them from his home by the mountain torrent, for
he was so high up, he looked down upon the whole village; and he had
often longed to join them and hear what they were saying; but as he
was nothing but a River-Troll, he was not able to venture within sight
or sound of the water of the holy Church Fountain.
Anywhere else he was free to roam; teazing the ch
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