d Rosalind, stooping of her own accord from the white hart's back,
kissed him.

I shall be very uncomfortable, Mistress Jane, till you have sewed on my
button.

FIFTH INTERLUDE

The milkmaids had not thought of their apples for the last hour, but
now, remembering them, they fell to refreshing their tongues with the
sweet flavors of fruit and talk.

Jessica: I cannot rest, Jane, till you have pronounced upon this story.

Jane: I never found pronouncement harder, Jessica. For who can
pronounce upon anything but a plain truth or a plain falsehood? and I
am too confused to extricate either from such a hotch-potch of magic as
came to pass without the help of any real magician.

Martin: Oh, Mistress Jane! are you sure of that? Did not Rosalind's
wishes come true, and can there be magic without a magician?

Jane: Her wishes came true, I know, both by the pool and by the ferry;
but that the pool and the ferry were supernatural remains unproved.
Because in both cases her wishes were brought about by a man. And if
there was any other magician at all, you never showed him to us.

Martin: Dear Mistress Jane, where were your eyes? I showed you the
greatest of all the magicians that give ear to the wishes of women; and
when it is necessary to bring them about, he puts his power on a man
and the man makes them come true. Which is a magic you must often have
noticed in men, though you may never have known the magician's name.

Joscelyn: We have never noticed any magic whatever in men. And we don't
want to know the magician's name. We don't believe in anything so silly
as magic.

Martin: I hope, Mistress Joscelyn, there were moments in my story not
too silly to be believed in.

Joscelyn: Silliness in stories is more or less excusable, since they
are not even supposed to be believed. And is there still a Wishing-Pool
on Rewell and a ferry at Bury?

Martin: The ferry is there, but Harding's hammer is silent. And where
his shop stood is a little cottage where children live, who dabble in
summer on the ferry-step. And their mother will run from her washing or
cooking to take you over the water for the same fee that Wayland asked
for shoeing a poor man's donkey or making a rich man's sword. And this
is the only miracle men call for from those banks to-day; and if ever
you tried to take a boat across the Bury currents, you would not only
believe in miracles but pray for one, while your boat turned in
mid-stream like a merry