On his way the the church, after he had
prayed with unwonted fervour to his protectress,
he met, not the old woman, but a stately
lady who went with him into the building, and
told him to hold in his left hand a bottle of
mixture which she gave him, to take the
monstrance from the tabernacle, and hold it in his
right hand, and thus armed to sit down close to
the high altar. She also warned him of the novel
circumstances for which he was to be prepared.

After the departure of the stately lady, the
sentinel awaited the signal of the midnight
hour in great uneasiness. At the last stroke of
the clock the princess again arose, with fire
darting from her eyes and mouth, cursing her
father more bitterly than ever, and seeking with
increased violence a victim for her wrath.
Presently four men made their appearance, who
seized her violently, and standing two on each
side of the church, tossed her backwards and
forwards like a shuttlecock. At the end of
this strange performance, they spread a carpet
over the altar-steps, and, flinging the princess
upon it, were about to chop her to pieces with a
huge sword. Warned that the time for action
was now come, the sentinel flung the monstrance,
containing the Host, at the impious four, and
they all vanished, leaving the princess gasping
at his feet.

Folding the carpet, the sentinel laid the princess
gently upon it, and touched her with the
contents of the bottle till she fell into a
profound sleep. On the following morning the
king found his daughter and her guardian,
neither of them awake. Causing them to be
raised gently, he had them conveyed in a four-horse
carriage to his palace, where he assigned
to each a separate apartment. Scarcely had the
princess awoke, when she called for her father
and mother, who were anxiously watching at the
foot of her bed, and expressed her delight that,
after her long and heavy sufferings, she could
once more embrace them. Next, she called for
her deliverer, vowing that she would have no
other husband.

On that very day the princess and the sentinel
were married; and in grateful remembrance
of their deliverance from peril, the image of the
Madonna was placed on the altar of the chapel
in the royal palace.

II

An old man was once blessed with a gawky
son, who united within himself the by no means
incompatible qualities of tallness of stature and
unwillingness to work. Tired of seeing him do
nothing, the old man put to him the plain question:
"Will you work on your own account, or
will you go to service?" The latter of the two
alternatives was accepted by the son; and the
fatlher told him that if the Evil One himself
consented to engage him, he (the father) would
feel perfectly satisfied.

One fine day, off they both went together in
quest of a suitable place, and met on the road
a person of singularly gentleman-like appearance,
who inquiring the object of their journey,
obtained a correct answer.

"I want a porter," said the gentleman, "and
this young chap looks stout and hearty. What
wages shall you want, my lad?"

"Threepence-halfpenny a year," was the
modest reply.

"Nay. you shall have tenpence, and very little
to do," returned the generous stranger. " Your
only duty will be to open and shut the door,
and woe betide you if you peep in!"

The situation was accepted, and the young
porter was surprised to observe that although
numbers of people, many of them high in
station, and even his own grandfather, went in at
the door at which he stood, nobody ever came
out of it. At last he guessed the quality of his
master; and when a year had passed, he gave
notice that he was about to leave. The gentleman,
knowing that he would have to look out for
another porter, was very unwilling to let him go,
and endeavoured to change his purpose by
showing him a large chest full of gold, and telling
him he might take out as much as he pleased.
The porter, however, would have neither more
nor less than his due; and, taking the tenpence
agreed upon, stalked merrily off, and did not
stop until he came to a poor man who solicited
alms.

"Take twopence-halfpenny," said the man of
property, " then I shall have twopence left for
tobacco, twopence-halfpenny for bread, and
threepence for wine." A second beggar received
the same pittance as the first, which reduced
the prospects of the philanthropist to
three-ha'porth. of tobacco, and bread to an equal
amount, and two-pennyworth of wine. A
third beggar, relieved to the same extent, caused
the tobacco to be struck off the list; the
remaining twopence-halfpenny, mentally
appropriated to the purchase of bread, was soon
bestowed upon a fourth mendicant, who received
the usual donation, the donor remarking at the
same time that he would henceforth be relieved
from the trouble of calculation. When a fifth
beggar appeared, the man of charity could only
inform him that there were no effects, and that
most probably he himself would become a
beggar in his turn. Delighted with the obviously
good disposition of the penniless lover of
mankind, the mendicant declared that he stood
in no need of his bounty, but, on the contrary,
would bestow on him any three gifts he pleased
to name.

The late porter at first fancied that beggar
was joking; but, being assured to the contrary,
he chose, as desirable gifts, a gun that would
never miss its mark, a fiddle which would make
everybody dance, and a sack into which every
one would be compelled to leap at the command
of its owner.

Enriched with his new property, the young
porter proceeded on his journey till he saw a
bird, wuich was flying high above his head, and
would, he thought, serve as a satisfactory test of
his gun. But as he was about to fire, two
friars came up to him, and laughed at his
attempt to make a musket do the work of a
cannon: one of them offering to jump into
the adjoining thicket, clad in Adam's earliest