All this while something very nice was happening, which I must tell you. There was in the poultry-yard a shabby little drab-colored hen, very small and very much despised; Cock-alu would not look at her, nor Hen-alie either; she had no tail-feathers at all, and long black legs which looked as if she had borrowed them from a hen twice her size; she was, in short, the meanest, most ill-conditioned hen in the yard. All the time, however, that Cock-alu was out on his fruitless errand, she had been comforting Hen-alie in the best way she could, and assuring her that Cock-alu would soon be back again with the water from the silver-spring. But when he came back without a single drop, and only offered the fine silk stockings and blue velvet garters instead, she set off, without saying a word, as fast as her long legs would carry her out of the wood and down to the silver-spring, which she reached in a wonderfully short time. Fortunately the silver-spring had flowed into its new channel as clearly as ever, and the evening dew had dropped its virtues into it. The owls were shouting "Kla-vit!" from one end of the wood to the other, The dark leathern-winged bats and the dusky white and buff-colored moths were flitting about the broad shadows of the trees, but the little hen took no notice of any of them. On she went, thinking of nothing but that which she had to do; and reaching the silver-spring, she gathered up twelve drops of water, and, hurrying back again, came into the yard just as poor Hen-alie was saying: "Oh, that somebody had loved me well enough to fetch me only one drop of silver-spring water!" "That I do!" said the shabby little hen, and dropped one drop after another into her beak. The first drop loosened the bean, the second softened it, and the third sent it down her throat. Hen-alie was well again; Cock-alu was ready to clap his wings and crow for joy; and the little hen turned quietly away to her solitary perch. "Nay," said Hen-alie, "but you shall not go unrewarded; see, here is a pair of silk stockings for you, and here is green fire which will make the most beautiful feathers in the world grow all over your body! Take them all, you good little thing, and to-morrow morning you will come out the handsomest hen in the yard!" So it was. There must have been magic in those silk stockings and that green fire, for the shabby little thing was now transformed into a regular queen-hen. The farmer's wife thought she must have strayed away from some beautiful foreign country, and gave her a famous breakfast to keep her. Cock-alu was very attentive to her; and as to Hen-alie, she never ceased singing her praises as long as she lived. THERE IS THE KEY OF THE KINGDOM