“What is the matter?” asked the woman from the bed. Then she slipped her hand under her pillow and drew out a box of salve. “Here! Rub the child’s eyes with a bit of this,” she said, “but be sure you do not get any of it on your own eyes, or it will be a bad thing for you,—scarce could be a worse.”
The nurse took a bit of the salve on her forefinger and rubbed the baby’s eyes with it, and then the mother bade her go and wash off any particle of salve that might be left on her finger.
All day Dame Pridgett waited on the mother and child, and when night came she was shown into a room next to theirs where she was to sleep.
The following day the dame was again kept busy with the mother and child. She washed the baby and rubbed the salve on its eyelids as before, and again the mother warned her not to let the least particle of salve touch her own eyes, or it would be the worse for her.
Food was set out for the nurse in a small room beyond her own. She did not know whence it came, nor who prepared it, but she was hungry and ate heartily of it, though it had a strange taste she did not like. The two ragged children came in and ate with her. They did not speak, but stared at her from under their matted hair. The little man she did not see again for some time.
So day followed day, and it was always the same thing over and over for Dame Pridgett, and every day after she had washed the child she rubbed salve on its eyelids. Soon its eyes, that had at first been dull, grew so bright and strong they sparkled like jewels. Dame Pridgett thought it must be a very fine salve. She would have liked to try some of it on her own eyes, for her sight was somewhat dim, but the mother watched her so closely that she never had a chance to use it.
Now, every day, after Dame Pridgett had washed the baby, she left the basin on a chair beside her while she rubbed the salve on the child’s eyes. One day she managed to upset the basin with her elbow as though by accident, though really by design. She gave a cry and bent over to pick up the basin, and as she did so, unseen by her mistress, she rubbed her right eye with the finger that still had some salve left on it.
When Dame Pridgett straightened up and looked about her she could hardly keep from crying out again at what she saw. The room and everything in it looked different. Instead of being poor and mean, it was like a chamber in a castle. Where there had been cobwebs were now shimmering silken hangings. The bed and all the furniture was of gold, magnificently carved. The sheets and pillow cases were of silk, and instead of a coarse, snub-nosed little woman, there among the pillows lay the most exquisite little lady the old dame had ever set eyes on; her skin was as fine as a rose leaf, her hair like spun gold, her lips like coral, and her eyes as bright as stars. The babe, also, from being a very ordinary looking child, had become the most exquisite little elfin creature that ever was seen.
Dame Pridgett managed somehow to keep quiet and hide her amazement, but now she knew very well that it was to fairyland she had come, and that these were fairy folk.
She made some excuse to go to the window and look out. The change outside was no less wonderful than that within. The muddy pool she now saw was a shining lake; the rocks were grottoes; the trees were covered with leaves and shining fruit, and the weeds were beds of flowers of wondrous colors, such as she had never seen before. As for the ragged children, she saw them now as fairy children clothed in the finest of laces and playing, not with pebbles, but with precious jewels so brilliant that they fairly dazzled the eyes.