not tell you," she answered.

Then he said, "If you won't tell me, then tell the iron stove there;"
and he went away.

She crept up to the stove and unburdened her heart to it. The King
stood outside by the pipes of the stove and heard all she said. Then
he came back, and caused royal robes to be put upon her, and her
beauty was a marvel. Then he called his son and told him that he had a
false bride, but that the true bride was here.

The Prince was charmed with her beauty and a great banquet was
prepared. The bridegroom sat at the head of the table, with the
Princess on one side and the Waiting-woman at the other; but she did
not recognize the Princess.

When they had eaten, the King put a riddle to the Waiting-woman. "What
does a person deserve that deceives his master?" telling the whole
story.

The false bride answered, "He must be put into a barrel and dragged
along by two white horses till he is dead."

"That is your doom," said the King, "and the judgment shall be carried
out."

When the sentence was fulfilled, the young Prince married his true
bride, and they lived together in peace and happiness.

BABES IN THE WOOD

Once upon a time there lived two little children whose parents were
ill unto death. They begged their brother to care for the two little
ones as he would his own.

The uncle promised he would be a father to them, but he soon began to
scheme to possess the money the parents had left in his care for the
children. He sent for two robbers and bargained with them to take the
two babes into the woods and kill them.

After going many miles into the woods one of the robbers said, "Let us
not kill the little children, they never harmed us." The other robber
would not consent, so they came to blows. This frightened the children
so much that they ran away and did not see the robbers again.

They wandered on and on until they became so tired and hungry that at
length they sat down at the foot of a tree and cried as if their
hearts would break. The little birds heard them and began to trill
sweet lullabies, which presently lulled them to rest.

The birdies knew that the children would die of cold and hunger, so
they covered them with leaves of crimson and brown and green. They
then told the angels in Heaven the sad story of the lost babes, and
one of the white-robed angels flew down to earth and carried both the
little ones back to Heaven, so that when they awoke they were no
longer ti