She was a boy's nurse, and she gave the boy a thing which she said was one of the snakes which St.
Hilda turned into stone; and told him that they found plenty of them at Whitby, where she was born, all coiled up; but what was very odd, their heads had always been broken of.

And when he took it, to his father, he told him it was only a fossil shell--an Ammonite.

And he went back and laughed at his nurse, and teased her till she was quite angry.
Then he was very lucky that she did not box his ears, for that was what he deserved.

I dare say that, though his nurse had never heard of Ammonites, she was a wise old dame enough, and knew a hundred things which he did not know, and which were far more important than Ammonites, even to him.
How?
Because if she had not known how to nurse him well, he would perhaps have never grown up alive and strong.

And if she had not known how to make him obey and speak the truth, he might have grown up a naughty boy.
But was she not silly?
No.