d, she lay down.

After some time the gray-haired man came, looked at her by the light
of his candle, and shook his head. And when he saw that she was sound
asleep, he opened a trapdoor and let her fall into the cellar.

The woodcutter came home late in the evening, and reproached his wife
for leaving him all day without food.

'No, I did not,' she answered; 'the girl went off with your dinner. She
must have lost her way, but will no doubt come back to-morrow.'

But at daybreak the woodcutter started off into the wood, and this time
asked his second daughter to bring his food.

'I will take a bag of lentils,' said he; 'they are larger than millet,
and the girl will see them better and be sure to find her way.'

At midday the maiden took the food, but the lentils had all gone; as on
the previous day, the wood birds had eaten them all.

The maiden wandered about the wood till nightfall, when she came in
the same way to the old man's house, and asked for food and a night's
lodging.

The man with the white hair again asked the beasts:

Pretty cock,
Pretty hen,
And you, pretty brindled cow,
What do you say now?

The beasts answered, 'Duks,' and everything happened as on the former
day.

The girl cooked a good meal, ate and drank with the old man, and did not
trouble herself about the animals.

And when she asked for a bed, they replied:

You have eaten with him
You have drunk with him,
Of us you have not thought,

Now sleep as you ought!

And when she was asleep, the old man shook his head over her, and let
her fall into the cellar.

On the third morning the woodcutter said to his wife, 'Send our youngest
child to-day with my dinner. She is always good and obedient, and will
keep to the right path, and not wander away like her sisters, idle
drones!'

But the mother said, 'Must I lose my dearest child too?'

'Do not fear,' he answered; 'she is too clever and intelligent to lose
her way. I will take plenty of peas with me and strew them along; they
are even larger than lentils, and will show her the way.'

But when the maiden started off with the basket on her arm, the wood
pigeons had eaten up the peas, and she did not know which way to go. She
was much distressed, and thought constantly of her poor hungry father
and her anxious mother. At last, when it grew dark, she saw the little
light, and came to the house in the wood. She asked prettily if she
might stay the