no, he
was there right enough, and pocketing things as fast as he could, right
under the stall-keepers' very noses, and they paying no heed whatever to
him!

Joan could bear it no longer! She could not stand by and see such
wickedness going on; it made her blood boil with indignation. So over she
bustled and touched him on the arm.

"Tom Trenance," she cried, "I'm downright ashamed of 'ee! I wonder you
ain't above carrying on such dishonest ways, and you with children to set
an example to! I didn't think you capable of such wickedness."

Tom for a minute looked, and was too much taken aback to speak. But he
quickly recovered himself. "Why, Joan," he said, taking no notice of her
accusations, "I take it very kind and neighbourly of 'ee to come up and
speak. What sharp eyes you've got! Now which of them did you 'appen to
catch sight of me with?"

"Which? Why, both, of course," cried Joan, but she put up her hand first
over one and then over the other, and found she could only see Tom with
the right one. "Why, no, I can't see 'ee with both," she cried in
astonishment. "The left one don't seem to be a bit of good!"

"The right one is it?" said Tom, and his look went through her like a
gimlet. Then, pointing his finger at it, he muttered:--

"Thou wicked old spy--
Thou shalt no more see me,
Nor peep nor pry
With that charmed eye."

And at that very moment a sharp pain shot through her right eye. It was
so sharp that she screamed aloud, and from that moment she never could see
with it again.

Yelling, and pressing her fist into her throbbing eyeball, she rushed
hither and thither, calling to people to come and help her, and to go and
catch Tom Trenance, all in one breath; but as they could not see Tom,--nor
could she, either, now,--they unkindly said the poor soul was crazy,
which, of course, was most unjust and cruel of them, and shows what
mistakes people can make.

Of course, it was the Fairy Ointment on her eye which enabled her to see
so much, and it was that same ointment which rendered Tom Trenance
invisible to everyone but to her.

How poor Joan ever found her way back to Market Jew Street again she never
could tell, but when she did arrive there she had, of course, to stay a
little while and tell her sad story, so that it was really quite late and
dark before she started for home; and then, what with the darkness and her
blindness she could only crawl along. She gr