he window looking into the garden, and she
saw a bed which was planted full of most beautiful lettuces. As she
looked at them she began to wish she had some to eat, but she could not
ask for them.

Day after day her wish for these lettuces grew stronger, and the
knowledge that she could not get them so worried her that at last
she became so pale and thin that her husband was quite alarmed.

"What is the matter with you, dear wife?" he asked one day.

"Ah!" she said, "if I do not have some of that nice lettuce which grows
in the garden behind our house, I feel that I shall die."

The husband, who loved his wife dearly, said to himself: "Rather than
my wife should die, I will get some of this lettuce for her, cost what
it may."

So in the evening twilight he climbed over the wall into the garden of
the Witch, hastily gathered a handful of the lettuces, and brought
them to his wife. She made a salad, and ate it with great eagerness.

[Illustration: THE FAIR MAIDEN WITH GOLDEN HAIR
FROM A DRAWING BY EDITH W. YAFFEE]

It pleased her so much and tasted so good that, after two or three days
had passed, she gave her husband no rest till he promised to get her
some more. So again in the evening twilight he climbed the wall, but as
he slid down into the garden on the other side he was terribly alarmed
at seeing the Witch standing near him.

"How came you here?" she said with a fierce look. "You have climbed
over the wall into my garden like a thief and stolen my lettuces; you
shall pay dearly for this!"

"Ah!" replied the poor man, "let me entreat for mercy; I have only
taken it in a case of extreme need. My wife has seen your lettuces from
her window, and she wished for them so much that she said she should
die if she could not have some of them to eat."

Then the Witch's anger cooled a little, and she replied: "If what you
tell me is true, then I will give you full permission to take as many
lettuces as you like, on one condition: you must give up to me the
child which your wife may bring into the world. I will be very kind to
it, and be as careful of it as a mother could be."

The husband in his alarm promised everything the Witch asked, and took
away with him as many lettuces as his wife wanted.

Not many weeks after this the wife became the mother of a beautiful
little girl, and in a short time the Witch appeared and claimed her
according to the husband's promise. Thus they were obliged to give up
their chil