“Prayer!” was the haughty answer; “with the eyes that I see in that glass, and this vesture meet for a queen, I lack no doubting prayer!”

Saint Mary shield us!  Ah words of evil soul!  There was a shriek—­a sob—­a cry:  and where was Alice of the Lea?  Vanished—­gone.  They had heard wild tones of sudden music in the air.  There was a rush—­a beam of light—­and she was gone, and that for ever!  East sought they her, and west, in northern paths and south; but she was never more seen in the lands.  Her mother wept till she had not a tear left; none sought to comfort her, for it was vain.  Moons waxed and waned, and the crones by the cottage-hearth had whiled away many a shadowy night with tales of Alice of the Lea.

But, at the last, as the gardener in the Pleasance leaned one day on his spade, he saw among the roses a small round hillock of earth, such as he had never seen before, and upon it something which shone.  It was her ring!  It was the very jewel she had worn the day she vanished out of sight!  They looked earnestly upon it, and they saw within the border (for it was wide) the tracery of certain small fine letters in the ancient Cornish tongue, which said,—­

  “Beryan Erde,
   Oyn und Perde!”

Then came the priest of the Place of Morwenna, a gray and silent man!  He had served long years at a lonely altar, a bent and solitary form.  But he had been wise in the language of his youth, and he read the legend thus—­

  “The earth must hide
  Both eyes and pride!”

Now, as he uttered these words, they stood in the Pleasance by the mound; and on a sudden there was a low faint cry!  They beheld, and O wondrous and strange! there was a small dark creature, clothed in a soft velvet skin, in texture and in hue like the Lady Alice her robe; and they saw, as it went into the earth, that it moved along without eyes, in everlasting night.  Then the ancient priest wept, for he called to mind all these things, and saw what they meant; and he showed them how this was the maiden, who had been visited with doom for her pride.  Therefore her rich array had been changed into the skin of a creeping thing and her large proud eyes were sealed up; and she herself had become

  The first mole! 
  Of the hillocks of Cornwall!

Ah! woe is me! and well-a-day! that damsel so stately and fair, sweet Lady Alice of the Lea, should be made for a judgement—­the dark mother of the moles!

Now take ye good heed, Cornish maidens, how ye put on vain apparel, to win love.  And cast down your eyes, all ye damsels of the west, and look ye meekly on the ground!  Be ye good and gentle, tender and true; and when ye see your image in the glass, and begin to be lifted up with the beauty of that shadowy thing, call to mind the maiden of Morwenna, her noble eyes and comely countenance, the vesture of price and the glittering ring.  Sit ye by the wheel, as of old they sate and as ye draw the lengthening wool, sing ye ever-more and say,