anet eat in these days, little heed would she
take of the gowns she wore. Her yellow hair hung down uncombed,
unbraided around her sad, pale face.

Janet had been used to join in the games her four-and-twenty
maidens played. She had run the quickest, tossed the ball the
highest, nor had any been more full of glee than she.

Now the maidens might play as they listed, little did the lady
Janet care.

When evening fell, her four-and-twenty ladies would play their
games of chess. Many a game had Janet won in bygone days.

Now the ladies might win or lose as they pleased, little did the
lady Janet care. Her heart was away on the plain of Carterhaugh
with her little wee elfin knight, and soon she herself would be
there.

Once more the moonbeams peeped in at her lattice window, and
Janet smiled, put on her fairest gown, and combed her yellow
locks. She was off and away to Carterhaugh.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Frontispiece.]

She reached the moor, she ran to the well, and there as before,
there, stood the steed of the little elfin man.

And Janet put out her hand and plucked a red red rose, but ere
she had plucked another, close beside her stood the young
Tamlane.

'Why do ye pluck my roses?' asked the little elf man. But Janet
had not come to talk about the roses, and she paid no heed to his
question.

'Tell me, Tamlane,' said the lady Janet, 'tell me, have ye always
been a little elfin man? Have ye never, in days gone by, been to
the holy chapel, and have ye never had made over you the sign of
the Holy Cross?'

'Indeed now, Janet, the truth will I tell!' cried the young
Tamlane.

Then the lady Janet listened, and the lady Janet wept as the
little wee knight told her how he had been carried away by the
Queen of the Fairies.

But yet a stranger tale he told to the maiden.

'Ere I was carried off to Fairyland, Janet,' said young Tamlane,
'we played as boy and girl in the old castle grounds, and well we
loved each other as we played together in those merry merry days
of long ago. Ye do not forget, Janet?'

Then back into the lady Janet's mind stole the memory of her
childhood's merry days, and of the little lad who had shared her
toys and played her games. Together they had made the walls of
the old castle ring with their laughter.

No, the lady Janet had not forgotten, and she knew that now, as
in the days of long ago, she loved the young Tamlane.

'Tell me,' she said, 'tell me how ye do spend your day in