self by
the brook. As he had a compassionate heart, he took out needle and
thread and stitched her together again. The bean thanked him in the most
elegant manner, but as he had sewn her up with black stitches, all beans
since then have a black seam.

The FISHERMAN and his WIFE

THERE was once a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a hovel by
the sea-shore, and the fisherman went out every day with his hook and
line to catch fish, and he angled and angled.

One day he was sitting with his rod and looking into the clear water,
and he sat and sat.

At last down went the line to the bottom of the water, and when he drew
it up he found a great flounder on the hook. And the flounder said to
him,

"Fisherman, listen to me; let me go, I am not a real fish but an
enchanted prince. What good shall I be to you if you land me? I shall
not taste well; so put me back into the water again, and let me swim
away."

"Well," said the fisherman, "no need of so many words about the matter,
as you can speak I had much rather let you swim away."

Then he put him back into the clear water, and the flounder sank to the
bottom, leaving a long streak of blood behind him. Then the fisherman
got up and went home to his wife in their hovel.

"Well, husband," said the wife, "have you caught nothing to-day?"

"No," said the man--"that is, I did catch a flounder, but as he said he
was an enchanted prince, I let him go again."

"Then, did you wish for nothing?" said the wife.

"No," said the man; "what should I wish for?"

"Oh dear!" said the wife; "and it is so dreadful always to live in this
evil-smelling hovel; you might as well have wished for a little cottage;
go again and call him; tell him we want a little cottage, I daresay he
will give it us; go, and be quick."

And when he went back, the sea was green and yellow, and not nearly so
clear. So he stood and said,

"O man, O man!--if man you be,
Or flounder, flounder, in the sea--
Such a tiresome wife I've got,
For she wants what I do not."

Then the flounder came swimming up, and said,

"Now then, what does she want?"

"Oh," said the man, "you know when I caught you my wife says I ought to
have wished for something. She does not want to live any longer in the
hovel, and would rather have a cottage.

"Go home with you," said the flounder, "she has it already."

So the man went home, and found, instead of the hovel, a little cottage,
and hi