e had given her the ass's skin.

The king was both astonished and grieved at this new request, but did
not hesitate an instant. The ass was sacrificed, and the skin laid at
the feet of the princess.

[Illustration: The Fairy, The Princess & The Donkey's Skin]

The poor girl, seeing no escape from the fate she dreaded, wept afresh,
and tore her hair; when, suddenly, the fairy stood before her.

'Take heart,' she said, 'all will now go well! Wrap yourself in this
skin, and leave the palace and go as far as you can. I will look after
you. Your dresses and your jewels shall follow you underground, and if
you strike the earth whenever you need anything, you will have it at
once. But go quickly: you have no time to lose.'

So the princess clothed herself in the ass's skin, and slipped from the
palace without being seen by anyone.

Directly she was missed there was a great hue and cry, and every corner,
possible and impossible, was searched. Then the king sent out parties
along all the roads, but the fairy threw her invisible mantle over the
girl when they approached, and none of them could see her.

The princess walked on a long, long way, trying to find some one who
would take her in, and let her work for them; but though the cottagers,
whose houses she passed, gave her food from charity, the ass's skin was
so dirty they would not allow her to enter their houses. For her flight
had been so hurried she had had no time to clean it.

Tired and disheartened at her ill-fortune, she was wandering, one day,
past the gate of a farmyard, situated just outside the walls of a large
town, when she heard a voice calling to her. She turned and saw the
farmer's wife standing among her turkeys, and making signs to her to
come in.

'I want a girl to wash the dishes and feed the turkeys, and clean out
the pig-sty,' said the woman, 'and, to judge by your dirty clothes, you
would not be too fine for the work.'

The girl accepted her offer with joy, and she was at once set to work in
a corner of the kitchen, where all the farm servants came and made fun
of her, and the ass's skin in which she was wrapped. But by-and-by they
got so used to the sight of it that it ceased to amuse them, and she
worked so hard and so well, that her mistress grew quite fond of her.
And she was so clever at keeping sheep and herding turkeys that you
would have thought she had done nothing else during her whole life!

One day she was sitting on the banks of