hers. Meanwhile Troccola came to see her
sister, and finding Marziella in great delight and busied with the
pearls, she asked her how, when, and where she had gotten them. But the
maiden, who did not understand the ways of the world, and had perhaps
never heard the proverb, "Do not all you are able, eat not all you
wish, spend not all you have, and tell not all you know," related the
whole affair to her aunt, who no longer cared to await her sister's
return, for every hour seemed to her a thousand years until she got
home again. Then giving a cake to her daughter, she sent her for water
to the fountain, where Puccia found the same old woman. And when the
old woman asked her for a little piece of cake she answered gruffly,
"Have I nothing to do, forsooth, but to give you cake? Do you take me
to be so foolish as to give you what belongs to me? Look ye, charity
begins at home." And so saying she swallowed the cake in four pieces,
making the old woman's mouth water, who when she saw the last morsel
disappear and her hopes buried with the cake, exclaimed in a rage,
"Begone! and whenever you breathe may you foam at the mouth like a
doctor's mule, may toads drop from your lips, and every time you set
foot to the ground may there spring up ferns and thistles!"

Puccia took the pitcher of water and returned home, where her mother
was all impatience to hear what had befallen her at the fountain. But
no sooner did Puccia open her lips, than a shower of toads fell from
them, at the sight of which her mother added the fire of rage to the
snow of envy, sending forth flame and smoke through nose and mouth.

Now it happened some time afterwards that Ciommo, the brother of
Marziella, was at the court of the King of Chiunzo; and the
conversation turning on the beauty of various women, he stepped
forward, unasked, and said that all the handsome women might hide their
heads when his sister made her appearance, who beside the beauty of her
form, which made harmony on the song of a noble soul, possessed also a
wonderful virtue in her hair, mouth, and feet, which was given to her
by a fairy. When the King heard these praises he told Ciommo to bring
his sister to the court; adding that, if he found her such as he had
represented, he would take her to wife.

Now Ciommo thought this a chance not to be lost; so he forthwith sent a
messenger post-haste to his mother, telling her what had happened, and
begging her to come instantly with her daugh