r that you are a simpleton, and would remain so were
you to live a hundred years, acting the prude as you do, and refusing
to kiss so handsome a youth, whilst I let a herdsman kiss me for a
couple of chestnuts."

At these words the bridegroom swelled with rage like a toad, so that
his food remained sticking in his throat; however, he put a good face
on the matter and swallowed the pill, intending to make the reckoning
and settle the balance afterwards. But when the tables were removed,
and the ogress and his sisters had gone away, Thunder-and-Lightning
said to the new bride, "Wife, did you see this proud creature refuse me
a kiss?" "She was a simpleton," replied the bride, "to refuse a kiss to
such a handsome young man, whilst I let a herdsman kiss me for a couple
of chestnuts."

Thunder-and-Lightning could contain himself no longer; the mustard got
up into his nose, and with the flash of scorn and the thunder of
action, he seized a knife and stabbed the bride, and digging a hole in
the cellar he buried her. Then embracing Parmetella he said to her,
"You are my jewel, the flower of women, the mirror of honour! Then turn
those eyes upon me, give me that hand, put out those lips, draw near to
me, my heart! for I will be yours as long as the world lasts."

The next morning, when the Sun aroused his fiery steeds from their
watery stable, and drove them to pasture on the fields sown by the
Dawn, the ogress came with fresh eggs for the newly married couple,
that the young wife might be able to say, "Happy is she who marries and
gets a mother-in-law!" But finding Parmetella in the arms of her son,
and hearing what had passed, she ran to her sister, to concert some
means of removing this thorn from her eyes without her son's being able
to prevent it. But when she found that her sister, out of grief at the
loss of her daughter, had crept into the oven herself and was burnt,
her despair was so great, that from an ogress she became a ram, and
butted her head against the wall under she broke her pate. Then
Thunder-and-Lightning made peace between Parmetella and her
sisters-in-law, and they all lived happy and content, finding the
saying come true, that--

"Patience conquers all."

XXIX

SUN, MOON, AND TALIA

It is a well-known fact that the cruel man is generally his own
hangman; and he who throws stones at Heaven frequently comes off with a
broken head. But the reverse of the medal shows us that innocence is a
s