course, but she did not. She thought her feet were paralyzed, and she
kept begging them to send for her husband.

"Perhaps he can pull her away," said Nan, crying. How she wished she
had never pinned the dill and the verse over the door! So she set off
for Dame Golding's husband. He came running in a great hurry; but when
he had nearly reached his wife, and had his arms reached out to grasp
her, he, too, stopped short. He had envied Dame Clementina for her
beautiful white cows, and there he was fast, also.

He began to groan and scream too. Nan and her mother ran into the
house and shut the door. They could not bear it. "What shall we do, if
any one else comes?" sobbed Nan. "O mother, there is Dame Dorothy
coming! And--yes--O she has stopped too!" Poor Dame Dorothy had envied
Dame Clementina a little for her flower-garden, which was finer than
hers, as she had to join Dame Golding and her husband.

Pretty soon, another woman came, who had looked with envious eyes at
Dame Clementina, because she was a count's daughter; and another, who
had grudged her a fine damask petticoat which she had had before she
was disinherited, and still wore on holidays; and they both had to
stop.

Then came three rough-looking men in velvet jackets and slouched hats,
who brought up short at the gate with a great jerk that nearly took
their breath away. They were robbers who were prowling about with a
view to stealing Dame Clementina's silver milk-pans some dark night.

All through the day the people kept coming and stopping. It was
wonderful how many things poor Dame Clementina had to be envied by men