o to make you happy. Now you are a woman, and I have no right to keep
you here. You must return to the world of men, where joy awaits you.'

'Dear lady,' entreated Elsa again. 'Do not, I beseech you, send me from
you. I want no other happiness but to live and die beside you. Make me
your waiting maid, or set me to any work you choose, but do not cast me
forth into the world. It would have been better if you had left me with
my stepmother, than first to have brought me to heaven and then send me
back to a worse place.'

'Do not talk like that, dear child,' replied the lady; 'you do not know
all that must be done to secure your happiness, however much it costs
me. But it has to be. You are only a common mortal, who will have to die
one day, and you cannot stay here any longer. Though we have the
bodies of men, we are not men at all, though it is not easy for you to
understand why. Some day or other you will find a husband who has
been made expressly for you, and will live happily with him till death
separates you. It will be very hard for me to part from you, but it has
to be, and you must make up your mind to it.' Then she drew her golden
comb gently through Elsa's hair, and bade her go to bed; but little
sleep had the poor girl! Life seemed to stretch before her like a dark
starless night.

Now let us look back a moment, and see what had been going on in Elsa's
native village all these years, and how her double had fared. It is
a well-known fact that a bad woman seldom becomes better as she grows
older, and Elsa's stepmother was no exception to the rule; but as the
figure that had taken the girl's place could feel no pain, the blows
that were showered on her night and day made no difference. If the
father ever tried to come to his daughter's help, his wife turned upon
him, and things were rather worse than before.

One day the stepmother had given the girl a frightful beating, and then
threatened to kill her outright. Mad with rage, she seized the figure by
the throat with both hands, when out came a black snake from her mouth
and stung the woman's tongue, and she fell dead without a sound. At
night, when the husband came home, he found his wife lying dead upon the
ground, her body all swollen and disfigured, but the girl was nowhere
to be seen. His screams brought the neighbours from their cottages, but
they were unable to explain how it had all come about. It was true, they
said, that about mid-day they had heard a