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LEGEND ⁠ IV.

 

THOUGH the favourite of the Gnome had been ſcrupulouſly careful to conceal the real origin of his good fortune, leſt other ſolicitants ſhould teize his patron by importunate applications of the ſame kind, the affair, nevertheleſs, at laſt became the country’s talk; for when the huſband’s ſecret hovers between the wife’s lips, the ſlighteſt gale will blow it away, as eaſy as a ſoap-bubble from the bowl of a tobacco-pipe. Mrs. Dobbins communicated it to a diſcreet neighbour; ſhe to her goſſip, the village barber—and he of courſe to all his cuſtomers; ſo it was noiſed abroad in the village, and afterwards through the whole pariſh. At the encouraging tale the broken houſe-keepers, the idlers, and the ſpendthrifts pricked up their

ears;