"Have you any of the chestnuts we brought from the Tour d'Antin?" asked my mother, turning to me. "If so, you might plant two or three here." "I have them, but I fear they are too dry to grow," said I. "However, it can do no harm to try." (Two of them did grow, and are now fine bearing trees.) "See, there is the holy well, under the arch yonder," said my mother. "I wonder do the village maids come on St. John's even to drop needles into it that they may dream of their sweethearts?" "Yes indeed; and the water is still sought for baptisms, under the notion that no person christened with that water will ever be hanged," said Andrew. "See, Vevette, there is my fairy housekeeper." A fairy indeed she looked. I never saw so small a person not to be a dwarf, yet she was perfectly well proportioned and very upright. Her hair, a little touched with silver, was black as a crow's wing, and her eyebrows the same. On the whole, she was a very handsome little creature, yet there was something about her so different from the country people among whom she lived that I did not wonder to hear that they regarded her as something not quite human. She made us welcome with great politeness, and I could but notice how well she spoke English. Andrew explained our errand. "We shall give you some trouble, I fear," said my mother. "Not at all, madame. It is a pleasure to me, and you are come in good time, for I have just been opening and airing the house." And indeed we had observed the open windows as we came up. "We will not trouble you to go with us," said Andrew. "My aunt knows the house of old." She curtsied and withdrew to her own special domain, and we went through all the rooms, which were in the best order, and certainly did credit to the sea-dame's housekeeping, being as dry and airy as if used all the time. In two or three of the rooms, fires were burning on the hearth, and there was a peculiar air of cheerfulness about the whole place. I remarked this to Andrew. "It does not seem at all like a deserted house," said I. "One would say these rooms were used to pleasant company." "The village folks would tell you that Dinah entertains her friends from the sea in these apartments," said Andrew, smiling. "They tell stories of seeing the house lighted up and hearing music at night. I determined to look into the thing, thinking possibly that the place might be the haunt of smugglers; but I found the lights came from the fires Dinah had lighted to expel the damp, and the music was the old harpsicon, on which she had taught herself to play, by the help of some music-books she had found." "Then she can read," said my mother.