l, darling pagoda?'

'Yes, I have, dear; but never mind, I'll buy you a new doll out of the
money I got for it.'

'Thank you,' said Fina; but the pork and beans did not taste so nice now
she knew that the pretty pagoda was sold. Also she was rather worried
about the ring. Ought she to keep it? She had found it, of course, but
someone must have lost it. Yet she couldn't bear to give it up, when she
hadn't made the slave of it do a single thing for her, except to mend
the pagoda.

After dinner Fina went and got the ring. She was very careful not to rub
it till she was safe and alone in a quiet green nook in the little wood
at the end of the garden, where the hazels and sweet chestnuts and
hornbeams grew so closely that she was quite hidden.

Then she rubbed the ring, and instantly the footman was there. But there
was no room for him to stand up under the thicket, so he appeared
kneeling, and trying to bow in that position.

'Then it's not a dream?' said she.

'How often I have heard them very words!' said the Slave of the Ring.

'I want you to tell me things,' said Fina. 'Do sit down; you look so
uncomfortable like that.'

'Thank you, miss,' said the footman; 'you're very thoughtful for a child
of your age, and of this age, too! Service ain't what it was.'

'Now, tell me,' she said, 'where did the ring come from?'

'There's seven secrets I ain't allowed to tell,' the footman said, 'and
that there what you asked me's one of them; but the ring's as old as
old--I can tell you that.'

'But I mean where did it come from just now--when I found it?'

'Oh, _then_. Why, it come out of the pagoda, of course. The floor of the
third story was made double, and the ring was stuck between the floor of
that and the ceiling of the second floor, and when you smashed the
pagoda o' course it rolled out. The pagoda was made o' purpose to take
care of the ring.'

'Who made it?' asked Fina.

'I did,' said the genie proudly.

'And now,' said Fina, 'what shall we do?'

'Excuse me,' the footman said firmly; 'one thing I'm _not_ bound to do
is to give advice.'

'But you'll do anything else I tell you?'

'Yes, miss--almost anything. I'll talk to you willing, I will, and tell
you my life's sorrows.'

'I should like that some other time,' said Fina, 'but just now, perhaps,
you'd better get me a doll.'

And a doll lay at her feet among the dead leaves. It was a farthing
Dutch doll.

'You didn't say what sort of a doll,' said