s; lilies, lilacs, violets, roses--oh, never was
there a lovelier garden!

The old woman stopped at the gate to look at the flowers; and as she
looked she heard a man and a woman, who sat on the door-step of a
house that stood in the garden, quarreling.

"Cotton," said the woman.

"Straw," said the man.

"'Tis not--"

"It is," they cried, and so it went between them, till they spied the
old woman at the gate.

"Here is one who will settle the matter," said the woman then; and she
called to the old woman:

"Good mother, answer me this: If you were making a cushion for your
grandfather's chair would you not stuff it with cotton?"

"No," said the old woman.

"I told you so," cried the man. "Straw is the thing, and no need to go
farther than the barn for it;" but the old woman shook her head.

"I would not stuff the cushion with straw," said she; and it would
have been hard to tell which one was the more cast down by her
answers, the man or the woman.

But the old woman made haste to take the bag of feathers out of her
basket, and give it to them.

"A feather cushion is fit for a king," she said, "and as for me, an
apple for a dumpling, or a nosegay from your garden will serve me as
well as what I give."

The man and the woman had no apples, but they were glad to exchange a
nosegay from their garden for a bag of fine feathers, you may be sure.

"There is nothing nicer for a cushion than feathers," said the woman.

"My mother had one made of them," said the man; and they laughed like
children as they hurried into the garden to fill the old woman's
basket with the loveliest posies; lilies, lilacs, violets, roses--oh!
never was there a sweeter nosegay.

"A good bargain, and not all of it in the basket," said the old woman,
for she was pleased to have stopped the quarrel, and when she had
wished the two good fortune and a long life, she went upon her way
again.

Now her way was the king's highway, and as she walked there she met a
young lord who was dressed in his finest clothes, for he was going to
see his lady love. He would have been as handsome a young man as ever
the sun shone on had it not been that his forehead was wrinkled into a
terrible frown, and the corners of his mouth drawn down as if he had
not a friend left in the whole world.

"A fair day and a good road," said the old woman, stopping to drop him
a courtesy.

"Fair or foul, good or bad, 'tis all one to me," said he, "when the
court je