"Tell him you have given me the mug, and I am
willing to dip the sea dry, but first let him take this tow and stop
up all the rivers that flow into the ocean."

The man did as his daughter bade him. He took the tow to the King and
told him exactly what the girl had said.

Then the King saw that the girl was indeed a clever one, and he sent
for her to come before him.

She came just as she was, in her homespun dress and her rough shoes
and with a cap on her head, but for all her mean clothing she was as
pretty and fine as a flower, and the King was not slow to see it.
Still he wanted to make sure for himself that she was as clever as her
messages had been.

"Tell me," said he, "what sound can be heard the farthest throughout
the world?"

"The thunder that echoes through heaven and earth," answered the girl,
"and your own royal commands that go from lip to lip."

This reply pleased the King greatly. "And now tell me," said he,
"exactly what is my royal sceptre worth?"

"It is worth exactly as much as the power for which it stands," the
girl replied.

The King was so well satisfied with the way the girl answered that he
no longer hesitated; he determined that she should be his Queen, and
that they should be married at once.

The girl had something to say to this, however. "I am but a poor
girl," said she, "and my ways are not your ways. It may well be that
you will tire of me, or that you may be angry with me sometime, and
send me back to my father's house to live. Promise that if this should
happen you will allow me to carry back with me from the castle the
thing that has grown most precious to me."

The King was willing to agree to this, but the girl was not satisfied
until he had written down his promise and signed it with his own royal
hand. Then she and the King were married with the greatest magnificence,
and she came to live in the palace and reign over the land.

Now while the girl was still only a peasant she had been well content
to dress in homespun and live as a peasant should, but after she
became Queen she would wear nothing but the most magnificent robes and
jewels and ornaments, for that seemed to her only right and proper for
a Queen. But the King, who was of a very jealous nature, thought his
wife did not care at all for him, but only for the fine things he
could give her.

One time the King and Queen were to ride abroad together, and the
Queen spent so much time in dressing herself that