pest she put them in a plate with a
white napkin over them and bade Karl take them to his father.

"And if any bid you stop or stay, or turn your feet from out your way,
say but the word that is spelled with the fourteenth and fifteenth
letters of the alphabet three times in a loud voice, and all will go
well with you," she said.

"All right," said Karl, nodding his head proudly, for he knew all his
letters by this time and could spell hard words like c-a-t, cat,
m-a-t, mat. "All right," but he did not stop to count the letters then
for he was in a great hurry to be off.

"I guess my father will be glad to get such fine pancakes for his
dinner," he said; and he ran so fast that he was half-way to the mill
before he knew it.

There was no whispering voice in the wood that day and no talking
rabbit to tempt him to a chase; but as he came to a place where
another path crossed his own, a bird called out from the heart of the
wood:

"Quick, quick, come here, here, here----"

"Where, where?" cried Karl; and he was just about to start in search
of the bird when he remembered what his grandmother had said:

"If any bid you stop or stay, or turn your feet from out your way, say
but the word that is spelled with the fourteenth and fifteenth letters
of the alphabet three times in a loud voice, and all will go well with
you."

"A, B, C, D, E, F, G," he chanted, counting the letters on his fingers
as he said them, "H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O:" N was the fourteenth letter
and O was the fifteenth. N-O; that was easy.

"No! No! No!" he shouted; and--do you believe it?--in less time than
it takes to tell it he was at the mill door with every pancake safe
and hot.

And the story goes that though he came and went through the Enchanted
Wood all the days of his life he was never hindered by anything there
again; and he never saw a goblin though he lived to be as old as his
grandmother had been when he was a little boy.

LITTLE MAID HILDEGARDE

One evening Little Maid Hildegarde's father came home with wonderful
news; the knights were coming to town. He had heard it as he came from
the forest where he cut wood all day and he hurried every step of the
way home to tell Hildegarde and her mother.

"They are on the king's business and will be at the Church Square
to-morrow morning at the hour of ten. Everybody in town will be there
to see them. Old Grandmother Grey is going to ask them to ride in
search of her little lamb t