From that morning his behaviour towards her was changed, and he became gloomy and morose, throwing out hints of his suspicions from time to time, which troubled the gentle maiden, without her being able to comprehend any reason for it all. But the pixies, seeing how matters stood, determined to convince the moody fellow of her truth, and at the same time to punish him for his unreasonable jealousy. So one evening, when he was coming home from a market-town (perhaps top-heavy), he was pixy-led in a meadow just below the miller's house, through which he had to pass. Hosts of pixies gathered for the occasion, armed with nettles, thistles, and small bushes of thorn-trees. With these formidable weapons they pricked, stung, and mercilessly belaboured the unfortunate young man, dancing around him with mocking gestures, and chasing him from one end of the field to another. Thus harassed, they kept him until the morning dawned, when one pixy came forward with a beautiful bunch of flowers, which he delivered to another pixy, who carried it off, and climbing up the vine that covered the side of the miller's house, laid the bouquet on the maiden's window-sill. Then he disappeared, followed quickly by the rest of the pixies, leaving the young man (who now saw from what quarter the flowers had come) to meditate on the matter. The result of his meditations was, that before another day was gone, he went to his betrothed and told her the doubts he had gone through, and the manner in which the pixies had freed him from those doubts; and the whole affair was then settled to the satisfaction of everybody concerned, including the pixies. Stories of this sort are wonderfully poetical, and may amuse young folks, but they are two centuries out of date, and we may hope that matters are educationally in train to supersede them by materials quite as droll and a little more rational. * * * * * Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. * * * * * _All Rights Reserved._ * * * * * [Transcriber's Note--the following changes have been made to this text: Page 770: daugher changed to daughter.] End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 728, December 8, 1877, by Various