that is growing here. But with respect to yourself, you shall be welcome to our humble cottage, and to the best supper and lodging we are able to give you."
The knight was well contented with this reception ; and alighting from his horse, which his host assisted him to relieve from saddle and bridle, he let him hasten away to the fresh jjasture, and thus spoke : " Even had I found you less hospitable and kindly disposed, my worthy old friend, you would still, I suspect, hardly have got rid of me to-day ; for here, I perceive, a broad lake lies before us, and as to riding back into that wood of wonders, with the shades of evening deepening around me, may Heaven in its grace preserve me from the thought."
" Pray not a word of the wood, or of returning into it !" said the fisherman, and took his guest into the cot- tage.
There, beside the hearth, from which a frugal fire was diffusing its light through the clean twilight room, sat the fisherman's aged wife in a great chair. At the entrance of their noble guest, she rose and gave him a courteous wel- come, but sat down again in her seat of honour, not making the slightest oft'er of it to the stranger. Upon this the fislierman said with a smile :
" You must not be offended with her, young gentleman, because she has not given up to you the best chair in the house ; it is a custom among poor people to look upon this as the privilege of the aged."
" Why, husband !" cried the old lady with a quiet smile, " where can your wits be wandering ? Our guest, to say the least of him, must belong to a Christian country ; and how is it possible, then, that so well-bred a young man as he appears to be could dream of driving old people from their chairs? Take a seat, my young master," con- tinued she, turning to the knight; " there is still quite a snug little chair on the other side of the room there, only be careful not to shove it about too roughly, for one of its legs, I fear, is none of the firmest."
