many candles, and
all round it were the bones and bodies of poor dead maidens, their
clothes all stained with blood; but of course it is not so, and it was
not so."

By this time all the neighbours were looking Mr. Fox-ways with all their
eyes, while he sate silent.

But Lady Mary went on, and her smiling lips were set:

"Then I dreamed that I ran downstairs and had just time to hide myself
when you, Mr. Fox, came in dragging a young lady by the hair. And the
sunlight glittered on her diamond ring as she clutched the stair-rail,
and you out with your sword and cut off the poor lady's hand."

Then Mr. Fox rose in his seat stonily and glared about him as if to
escape, and his eye-teeth showed like a fox beset by the dogs, and he
grew pale.

And he said, trying to smile, though his whispering voice could scarcely
be heard:

"But it is not so, dear heart, and it was not so, and God forbid it
should be so!"

Then Lady Mary rose in her seat also, and the smile left her face, and
her voice rang as she cried:

"But it is so, and it was so;
Here's hand and ring I have to show."

[Illustration: Many's the beating he had from the broomstick or the
ladle]

And with that she pulled out the poor dead hand with the glittering
ring from her bosom and pointed it straight at Mr. Fox.

At this all the company rose, and drawing their swords cut Mr. Fox to
pieces.

And served him very well right.

DICK WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT

More than five hundred years ago there was a little boy named Dick
Whittington, and this is true. His father and mother died when he was
too young to work, and so poor little Dick was very badly off. He was
quite glad to get the parings of the potatoes to eat and a dry crust of
bread now and then, and more than that he did not often get, for the
village where he lived was a very poor one and the neighbours were not
able to spare him much.

Now the country folk in those days thought that the people of London
were all fine ladies and gentlemen, and that there was singing and
dancing all the day long, and so rich were they there that even the
streets, they said, were paved with gold. Dick used to sit by and listen
while all these strange tales of the wealth of London were told, and it
made him long to go and live there and have plenty to eat and fine
clothes to wear, instead of the rags and hard fare that fell to his lot
in the country.

So one day when a great waggon with eight hors