"I cannot answer all your questions, my daughter," said he; "I can but proceed according to my art. Whether the person you will see may be visible to others I know not, nor can I tell you aught of his name or condition. Pray Heaven he be worthy of such beauty and gentleness; for I have heard of you, gracious lady, but rumor had but poor words to describe such a rarity and a prize."
"Nay," said she, in tones of reproof (but the color had mounted to a face that certainly showed no sign of displeasure), "you speak like one of the courtiers now."
"This charm," said he, dropping his eyes, and returning to his grave and formal tones, "is worth naught without a sprig of rosemary; that must you get, and you must place it within the paper in a threefold manner--thus; and then, when Sol and Luna are both in the descendant--but I forget me, the terms of my art are unknown to you; I must speak in the vulgar tongue; and meanwhile you shall see the charm, that there is nothing wicked or dangerous in it, but only the wherewithal to bring about a true lovers' meeting."
He handed her the open piece of paper; but she, having glanced at the writing, gave it him back again.
He regarded her for a second with some slight surprise; but he took the paper, and read aloud, slowly, the lines written thereon:
"Dare you haunt our hallowed green? None but fairies here are seen. Down and sleep, Wake and weep, Pinch him black, and pinch him blue, That seeks to steal a lover true, When you come to hear us sing, Or to tread our fairy ring, Pinch him black, and pinch him blue-- Oh, thus our nails shall handle you!"
"Why, 'tis like what my father wrote about Herne the Hunter," said she, with a touch of indifference; perhaps she had expected to hear something more weird and unholy.
"Please you, forget not the rosemary; nothing will come of it else," he continued. "Then this you must take in your hand secretly, and when no one has knowledge of your outgoing; and when Luna--nay, but I mean when the moon has risen to-night so that, standing in the church-yard, you shall see it over the roof of the church, then must you go to the yew-tree that is in the middle of the church-yard, and there you shall scrape away a little of the earth from near the foot of the tree, and bury this paper, and put the earth firmly down on it again, saying thrice, _Hieronymo! Hieronymo! Hieronymo!_ You follow me, sweet lady?"