are to be the progenitor, is blessed with offspring, I will stand godmother to every first-born.  All the sons of your house from first to last, whether they be dark or fair, or brown, shall bear the grey lock.  It will be a sign unto your posterity that much good fortune awaits them.  My authority, however, is limited, and if at any time a higher power should hinder me from exerting my influence in behalf of one of your grandsons, then will the grey lock be missing from his head, and it will depend altogether on himself how his life unfolds itself.  One thing more.  Give me back my ring and take instead this mirror, which will always show to you and yours whatever you hold most dear, even when you are far away from it.”

“Then it will ever be granted to me to bring your face before my eyes, oh! lovely lady!” the knight exclaimed.

The fairy laughed and answered:  “No, Duke Greylock—­the mirror can only reflect the forms of mortals.  I know a wife awaiting you, whom you will rather see than any picture in the glass, even were it that of a fairy.  Receive my thanks once more! you are duke, enter now into your dukedom!”

With these words she disappeared.  A gentle rustling and tinkling was heard through the air, the waste ground covered itself with fresh green, the dry river beds filled with clear running water, and on their banks appeared blooming meadows, shady groves and forests.  The broken walls against the hillsides fitted themselves together, rose higher and supported once more the terraces covered with vine stocks and fruit-trees.  Villages and cities grew into form and lay cradled in the landscape.  Beautiful gardens bloomed forth, full of gay flowers, olive-trees, orange-trees, citron, and fig, and pomegranate-trees, each covered with its golden fruit of many-seeded apples.  In the neighbourhood of the grotto in which the fairy had been imprisoned a park of incomparable beauty grew into view, where brooks whispered and fountains played, and shady pergolas appeared, formed of gold and silver trellises, over which a thousand luxuriant creepers clambered, holding by their little tendril hands.

The fallen columns stood up again, the mutilated marble statues found new noses and arms, and in the background of all this growing magnificence the young duke perceived-at first dimly, as if obscured by mists, then more distinctly-the outline of a palace with loggia, balconies, columned halls, and statues in bronze and marble around the cornice of its flat roof.

George, the squire, gazed in openmouthed wonder, and his mouth remained open until he entered the fore-court of the palace.  Then he only closed it to give his jaws a little rest before their future labours began, for such a good smell from the kitchen greeted him that he ordered the willing cook to satisfy immediately the demands of his appetite, as his hunger was greater than his curiosity.