ook about her, they crowded nearer. "Why, Anne, child, you've been in a
fit, haven't 'ee?"

Anne lifted her arm and looked at it and her hand; there was not a
single jewel on either. She glanced down over her gown,--it was of
linsey-woolsey, not silk or velvet. She closed her eyes again that they
might not see the tears that sprang to them.

"I don't know if I've been in a fit," she said wearily, but to herself she
added sadly, "I know, though, that I've been in love."

BARKER AND THE BUCCAS.

Perhaps some of you have never heard about the 'Buccas,' or 'Knockers,'
as some people call them, the busy little people about the same size as
piskies, who are said to be the souls of the Jews who used to work in the
tin mines in Cornwall.

The Buccas live always in rocks, mines, or wells, and they work
incessantly pickaxing, digging, sifting, etc., from one year's end to the
other, except on Christmas Day, Easter Day, All Saints' Day, and the Jews'
Sabbath. On those days their little tools are laid aside, and all is
quiet, but on every other you can, if you listen, hear them hammer,
hammer, dig, dig, and their tongues chattering all the time.

A lot of these little people lived and worked within the sides of a well
in one particular part of Cornwall, the name of which I will not tell you,
for in the first place you would not be able to pronounce it if I did;
and in the second, you might be tempted to go there and disturb them,
which would make them angry, and bring all kinds of ill-luck and trouble
upon yourself.

The story I am going to tell you is of someone who did disturb them, and
pried upon them after laughing at them. The name of the youth was Barker,
a great, idle, hulking fellow, who lived in the neighbourhood of the well
where these little Buccas dwelt.

Now this Barker often heard the neighbours talking about the Buccas, and
praising their industry, and, like most idle people, he disliked hearing
others praised for doing what he knew he ought to do but would not.
So, to annoy the neighbours, and the Buccas, too, he declared he "didn't
believe there wasn't no such things. Seeing was believing, and when they
showed him a Bucca 'twould be soon enough for him to b'lieve there was
such things." And he repeated this every time the little men were
mentioned.

"'Tis nowt but dreams," he sneered, "there ba'nt no Buccas in Fairy Well,
no more nor I'm a Bucca."

"You a Bucca!" cried the neighbours, "why,