atal words of her sister passed, and said:

"How now, young women, that's very strange talk of yours!"

"Well, monseigneur," stammered the betrothed girl, "they are twitting
me upon marrying a man with a horse's head; but I will cut his throat
on the night of our wedding with as little conscience as I would cut
the throat of a pig." The unknown gentleman laughed as he had done
before and passed upon his way.

As on the previous occasion, the wedding was celebrated with all the
pomp and circumstance which usually attends a Breton ceremony of the
kind, and in due time the bride was conducted to her chamber, only to
be found in the morning weltering in her blood.

At the end of another three months the seigneur dispatched his mother
for the third time to the farmer, with the request that his younger
daughter might be given him in marriage, but on this occasion her
parents were by no means enraptured with the proposal. When the great
lady, however, promised them that if they consented to the match they
would be given the farm to have and to hold as their own property,
they found the argument irresistible and reluctantly agreed. Strange
to say, the girl herself was perfectly composed about the matter, and
gave it as her opinion that if her sisters had met with a violent
death they were entirely to blame themselves, for some reason which
she could not explain, and she added that she thought that their loose
and undisciplined way of talking had had much to do with their
untimely fate. Just as her sisters had been, she too was taunted by
the laundresses regarding her choice of a husband, but her answer to
them was very different.

"If they met with their deaths," she said, "it was because of their
wicked utterances. I do not in the least fear that I shall have the
same fate."

As before the unknown seigneur passed, but this time, without saying
anything, he hurried on his way and was soon lost to view.

The wedding of the youngest sister was even more splendid than that of
the two previous brides. On the following morning the young seigneur's
mother hastened with fear and trembling to the marriage chamber, and
to her intense relief found that her daughter-in-law was alive. For
some months the bride lived happily with her husband, who every night
at set of sun regained his natural appearance as a young and handsome
man. In due time a son was born to them, who had not the least sign of
his semi-equine parentage, and when