s looked like the bird, and all old women were as
my wonderful old friend. I had also read a little about love, and in
my imagination I figured in strange tales. I formed a mental picture
of the most beautiful knight in the world and adorned him with all
sorts of excellences, without really knowing, after all my trouble,
what he looked like. But I could feel genuine pity for myself if he
did not return my love, and then I would make long, emotional speeches
to him, sometimes aloud, in order to win him. You smile--we are all
now past this period of youth.

"I now liked it rather better when I was alone, for I was then myself
mistress of the house. The dog was very fond of me and did everything
I wanted him to do, the bird answered all my questions with his song,
my wheel was always spinning merrily, and so in the bottom of my heart
I never felt any desire for a change. When the old woman returned from
her wanderings she would praise my diligence, and say that her
household was conducted in a much more orderly manner since I belonged
to it. She was delighted with my development and my healthy look. In
short, she treated me in every way as if I were a daughter.

"'You are a good child,' she once said to me in a squeaky voice. 'If
you continue thus, it will always go well with you. It never pays to
swerve from the right course--the penalty is sure to follow, though it
may be a long time coming.' While she was saying this I did not give a
great deal of heed to it, for I was very lively in all my movements.
But in the night it occurred to me again, and I could not understand
what she had meant by it. I thought her words over carefully--I had
read about riches, and it finally dawned on me that her pearls and
gems might perhaps be something valuable. This idea presently became
still clearer to me--but what could she have meant by the right
course? I was still unable to understand fully the meaning of her
words.

"I was now fourteen years old. It is indeed a misfortune that human
beings acquire reason, only to lose, in so doing, the innocence of
their souls. In other words I now began to realize the fact that it
depended only upon me to take the bird and the gems in the old
woman's absence, and go out into the world of which I had read. At the
same time it was perhaps possible that I might meet my wonderfully
beautiful knight, who still held a place in my imagination.

"At first this thought went no further than any other, b